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European AI. A playbook to own it

europe.mistral.ai

21–30 of 155 posts

Re: European AI. A playbook to own it

#21
post #9

I've tried Mistral a few times, at first it seemed promising (though lagging) but at some point it seems like they stopped focusing on AI and shifted their focus to being a mouthpiece for EU policy and pushing for regulation. I can't really take any of their announcements seriously anymore. A couple of weeks ago they were calling for a European AI tax to pay creatives.

They are making some very good specialised models, like Voxtral

Re: European AI. A playbook to own it

#22
I feel like Europe needs to remove barriers and let people do things freely rather than stuff like "Empower AI students". Ambitious people will naturally find a way to get stuff done and you just have to allow it to happen and not get in the way. At least "EU AI talent visa" sounds like it can work by removing barriers to relocate.

Re: European AI. A playbook to own it

#23
post #14

I find it so funny that the people leading AI today have names that could be the characters of a bad scifi novel. Amodei (love of god) Altman (alternative to man?) Arthur Mensch fighting from the ethical side

this whole timeline feels like a Bad Cyberpunk novel, Trump, Musk etc

[dead]

Re: European AI. A playbook to own it

#24

I like the "european technology" movement not because of any nationalist ideas, but because it stimulates technological innovation and creates a new dynamic.

It's important to note that these efforts aren't nationalistic - they're multilateral. In fact, European nationalists are consistently trying to sabotage European efforts.

On the bright side: people seem to be moving away from such nationalistic ideas. Here's to Orban being the first of many defeats for them in the near future.

Re: European AI. A playbook to own it

#26
I don't understand why European providers can't just host open-weight models developed by the Chinese, or distill Google/OpenAI/Anthropic models to produce their own models on the the cheap.

Nobody acts like you need to invent steel to have a steel mill.

Re: European AI. A playbook to own it

#27
The site starts with

> The question is no longer whether Europe can compete, ...

But it, too, do not ask myself this question any more. Since EU seems to have already lost completely.

Even Proton's new local AI service uses Ollama, which was developed in USA and is pretty outclassed. Does HN say europe can do more than hope to catch up in five to ten years, if the race is still on then?

Re: European AI. A playbook to own it

#28
post #13

Interesting reading this with > Tell HN: docker pull fails in spain due to football cloudflare block next to it on the front page

Other than you seeing a thing you want to see, why? There’s a pretty well known story behind that. Also, this post was written by a mensch, so have some respect.

I'd say that situation is representative of a very apropos mentality from a very apropos entity... but this reaction to even mentioning that is the most telling signal on if there's actually willpower to make what they're advocating for happen on the ground.

Re: European AI. A playbook to own it

#29
There's this sentiment in Germany that if you can't make in industry, you work for the government or - even worse - become a politician. It seems like Mistral took that to the next level; they can't compete so they do lobbying instead.

Being European, I love the idea of European AI labs. But I wish there was more competition.

That being said, as a German for example, I can't think of an AI company successfully training a competitive foundation model here. The copyright mafia would take your investor's money before you could even finish the first training run (hyperbole.)

Re: European AI. A playbook to own it

#30
Reads like asking for a EU handout. It touches on some visible issues in the single market, but most of what I've seen is not warranted. Eg. minimum spending quotas for AI work/integration/research, using European models (basically today = use Mistral), or carving residency process exceptions for AI researchers.
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