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Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

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Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#211

Post by sprash »

throwaway4good wrote: post #204

It is the old military industrial complex thing again, isn't it? Drumming up a scary vision of global war against China using flying AI-killer robots in outer space while your companies are siphoning billions of dollars out of defense budgets and you get your competition (Huawei, TikTok etc.) banned on national security grounds. Innovation comes from a functioning global market place of "ideas". It is a 1+1=3 game, n…

If you deal with unequal trade "partners" like China that grossly disregard any intellectual property, don't care about labor security and environmental standards and as a result have a massive trade surplus not based on innovation but mostly based on cheap labor you have to draw a line at some point.

The biggest "ball" that was dropped on innovation in the US was to allow companies to outsource their manufacturing to mainland china.

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#212

Post by tpetry »

emsy wrote: post #195

Tangential, since this article is about the US and China. But if the US has dropped the ball, then Europe (or the EU specifically) didn't even bother to go to the game. The only thing we're innovative at is coming up with regulations. And I say this as someone who thinks the US tech sector should be under much heavier regulatory scrutiny.

There‘s not enough funding and risk money in europe to play the game with the big ones. Europe is sadly completely risk averse. You only get big money if it is sure you succeed.

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#213

Post by ithkuil »

pbourke wrote: post #191
ithkuil wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people lack the necessary expertise to recognize an expert when they see one. They thus are left to resort to authority as the proximate measure accessible to them to assess how much credit to assign to the opinions of a particular expert. To complicate matters, there are documented cases where in the past half century at least experts have be bought by special interest groups such as big tobacco etc. This erode…

It’s easier to set up a system to provide nonpartisan funding and review of scientific work than it is to have everyone read and source all of the research. It’s also easier to set up an apolitical body that makes recommendations based on research than it is to have everyone draw their own conclusions or devolve into “blue science” vs “red science” These are mechanisms that cultivate public trust, and there are count…

Until those apolitical bodies become institutionalized and perceived by some people as being an expression of an elite caste and then a new political current arises to galvanize people against "elites" and poasibly takes over one of the existing parties (or creates a new one, depending on the country specific political and election rules)

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#214

Post by bluecmd »

emsy wrote: post #195

Tangential, since this article is about the US and China. But if the US has dropped the ball, then Europe (or the EU specifically) didn't even bother to go to the game. The only thing we're innovative at is coming up with regulations. And I say this as someone who thinks the US tech sector should be under much heavier regulatory scrutiny.

Since you mention regulation, I think it is something to be proud of. GDPR, Germany saying hell-no to forced Facebook accounts, etc.

As for innovation? US isn't even top 10 when it comes to Nobel prize per capita (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Nobel_l...).

IKEA, SAP, Beretta, Airbus, Spotify, Linux, Prometheus, Grafana, Booking.com just from the top of my head of things that are proof of European innovation and tech sector.

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#215

Post by mondoshawan »

nix23 wrote: post #178
robk wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The serious android work was done well after acquisition

I would say the serious work was done before...you know the operating-system. Like with chrome..the serious work was made before...khtml.

No, not really. The vast majority of the OS was developed after Android was acquired. It wasn't even a shippable product before then. Source: I have a Sooner, the first ever android phone, abd I wrote software for it.

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#216

Post by [deleted] »

sprash wrote: post #211
throwaway4good wrote: post #204

It is the old military industrial complex thing again, isn't it? Drumming up a scary vision of global war against China using flying AI-killer robots in outer space while your companies are siphoning billions of dollars out of defense budgets and you get your competition (Huawei, TikTok etc.) banned on national security grounds. Innovation comes from a functioning global market place of "ideas". It is a 1+1=3 game, n…

If you deal with unequal trade "partners" like China that grossly disregard any intellectual property, don't care about labor security and environmental standards and as a result have a massive trade surplus not based on innovation but mostly based on cheap labor you have to draw a line at some point. The biggest "ball" that was dropped on innovation in the US was to allow companies to outsource their manufacturing t…

[deleted]

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#217

Post by fvdessen »

emsy wrote: post #195

Tangential, since this article is about the US and China. But if the US has dropped the ball, then Europe (or the EU specifically) didn't even bother to go to the game. The only thing we're innovative at is coming up with regulations. And I say this as someone who thinks the US tech sector should be under much heavier regulatory scrutiny.

There was still not that long ago an incredible amount of innovative companies and products in Europe.

But at that time companies were still built for their home markets first and on that regard the USA is big and unified. Since software is mostly winner takes all it means that when the USA companies came to Europe they had already won the USA and could steamroll the local competition

There is for example no way a swedish mapping company could have competed with google maps , which had so much search monopoly money backing it up from the start

The only way Europe could have prevented this is to just ban foreign monopolies, wich is what china did, and why they are now succesfully ‘innovating’.

I read often on this website that europe cannot ‘take risks’ or ‘innovate’ and is ‘riding on american innovation for free’ and I find that a bit insulting, because I fell that as things are geopolitically it’s just not possible for Europeans to compete fairly with Americans

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#218

Post by malka »

dfee wrote: post #72

Eric Schmidt is a household name around here. Doesn’t mean I give a damn about what he thinks. > Dr Schmidt, who is currently the Chair of the US Department of Defense's innovation board, said he thinks the US is still ahead of China in tech innovation, for now. “Invest in my next project now, before it’s too late!” is what I read it as. Edit: let me clarify. Innovation isn't zero-sum. I believe America is the most f…

US ? Ethics ? I just choked on my coffee.

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#220

Post by sjy »

unishark wrote: post #99
ekianjo wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's also just the quality and access to education seems it's getting worse and worse. I don't know about access in other countries, but the quality of education is dropping like a stone pretty much in every developed country right now. (And it's not a recent trend, it's been years in the making)

What do you mean by quality here? I'd say the quality of the teaching has been going up as the quality of the students has been going down (precisely because access is going up). The focus is increasingly on the lowest common denominator which requires a lot more effort from teachers.

I imagine the situation is country-specific and I’m not aware of any good studies that try to measure it. But anecdotally, as a university student around 2010, I noticed that the standards expected of undergraduates in old textbooks, exam papers and theses seemed higher. Maybe it’s just that these sources gave me the false impression of an ideal student, but a lot has changed in recent decades. As well as the growth in the student population, by 2010 it was pretty common for “full-time” students to work part-time as well.

Hannah Arendt was probably an exceptional professor in 1955, but I wonder how this compares to a final exam for a first-year political science class at an exceptionally good university today? https://twitter.com/Samantharhill/status/1297545059466907650

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