71–80 of 313 posts
Absolutely not, even if Europe was given all of the compute in the world. The issues are much much worse. Starting at "data privacy", continuing with the "EU AI Act" and just an overall mindset of regulation and German angst. Many structures in the EU actively prevent and fight against innovation. Oftentimes more subtle but the consequences stay the same. If you ever had to use one of the "sovereign" AI provides such…
Absolutely not, even if Europe was given all of the compute in the world. The issues are much much worse. Starting at "data privacy", continuing with the "EU AI Act" and just an overall mindset of regulation and German angst. Many structures in the EU actively prevent and fight against innovation. Oftentimes more subtle but the consequences stay the same. If you ever had to use one of the "sovereign" AI provides such…
We can debate the details and implementation but EU legislature is, at least in spirit, trying to protect human rights. What does it say about progress that the same laws that protect human rights also stifle innovation?
Sure, theoretically, if it could come to an agreement, and meanwhile the cross-border cooperation of even the inter-EU countries is at an abysmal rate, and currently, even during a goddamn land war with Russia, Germany and France can't come to an agreement to build a fighter jet ensemble (together).
The fighter jet program was a jobs program, not dissimilar to how many US government programs are jobs programs by having different parts of it made in different states for no goo reason. Add in some nationalism and it was inevitable it would not work out.
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Yes, but they are incompatible with being on the forefront of AI.
Yep. I wonder if being at the forefront of AI makes for a better & more free society.
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> 1. In order to build competitive models, you need to offer competitive salaries and equity. FWIW, for the equity part there's a proposal expected to pass for next year: https://www.eu-inc.org/ (but it doesn't address taxes, cross-border employment, or anything significant so it's mostly moot). The main goal is to attract native VCs. AFAIK it's designed by lawyers and old money, with little to no input from tech ent…
The culture's still all wrong. If you have a startup that failed in SV, that's par for the course. Better luck next time! If you fail in the EU, that's the kiss of death. Your startup failed ???
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In a weird sense, the EU exemplifies what the USA would be like without a strong federal government: Dysfunctional as states compete with, undercut and stifle each other.
You don't think US states compete with, undercut and stifle each other? Second question: you think the USA has a strong federal government? I mean that is actually an open question even in non-Trump years, not least when one side of the political aisle was famously dedicated to shrinking it down so small it could be "drowned in a bathtub", to quote one of its more famous assholes.
Compete with each other, yes.
But all US states take pride in Silicon Valley being American.
No EU project for its own "Silicon Valley" can succeed, because the French would insist on it being in France, Germans would insist on Germany, Dutch in the Netherlands, etc.
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Yes, but they are incompatible with being on the forefront of AI.
Yep. I wonder if being at the forefront of AI makes for a better & more free society.
Westphalian norms are falling apart and countries will need to make hard tradeoffs about how to build enough economic heft to maintain their cultural values.
Absolutely not, even if Europe was given all of the compute in the world. The issues are much much worse. Starting at "data privacy", continuing with the "EU AI Act" and just an overall mindset of regulation and German angst. Many structures in the EU actively prevent and fight against innovation. Oftentimes more subtle but the consequences stay the same. If you ever had to use one of the "sovereign" AI provides such…
We can debate the details and implementation but EU legislature is, at least in spirit, trying to protect human rights. What does it say about progress that the same laws that protect human rights also stifle innovation?
As you said, in spirit. In fact the EU’s AI Act is not really human rights legislation. (It exempts military and national-security uses.) Where it comes close, e.g. in seeking to ban facial recognition or social scoring, it does so clumsily.
So in practice, the EU has passed a series of laws that essentially make AI a monopoly of military and intelligence-community interests while forcing its consumers to use foreign products. Not exactly a win.
Sure, theoretically, if it could come to an agreement, and meanwhile the cross-border cooperation of even the inter-EU countries is at an abysmal rate, and currently, even during a goddamn land war with Russia, Germany and France can't come to an agreement to build a fighter jet ensemble (together).
You mean like they've been doing since the 1950s with the the largest physics laboratory in the world (CERN)? Or more to the point, the European High-Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) of which 27/27 EU member states participate? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_High-Performance_Comp... Even at the smaller level the ethos and ambition is clear - take EURO-3C: the Horizon Europe project aimed a…
I think that is the way forward: work with whoever has common interests and is willing to work together.
I think the point is that the EU does not necessarily make cooperation between governments any easier.
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isnt the eu basically a less federalist version of the usa? how is it then that the usa claims its more free? the individual state members in the EU have more freedom than individual states. someone explain this to me please
In the US, the freedom is explicitly for the people, not Federal nor State government. States are relatively more free than the Federal government, but both are greatly restricted by the Constitution. Before the Constitution, the US had a previous government under the Articles of Confederation (see below) that had many deficiencies and only gave freedom to member States. The EU is organized more similar to the US und…
I don't see how anyone can make this claim in 2026 and not expect to be laughed out of the room? In practice, freedom is for sale; it's not available to the people nor the citizens.