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Mistral's CEO: Europe has 2 years to stop becoming America's AI 'vassal state'

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141–150 of 204 posts

Re: Mistral's CEO: Europe has 2 years to stop becoming America's AI 'vassal state'

#141
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But working in UE gives you much stronger job protection. So, in a way, you get what you pay for.

But that is a the problem though. You get stronger job protection because its very hard to find a job. If you could find a new job quickly and if the job market was more fluid, you would only rarely need this sort of job protection.

Compared to what I have heard about the US, I'd say it is actually easier to find jobs in (at least Western) Europe. Plenty of jobs, and a way easier interview process. Not 8 rounds of interviews and months of waiting (that I've heard of). But maybe two rounds in the same week and start the next month (if you want).

Re: Mistral's CEO: Europe has 2 years to stop becoming America's AI 'vassal state'

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's only true at the micro level; at the macro level it is surprisingly stable over the EU zone + UK + Norway. There are capacity and interconnect issues but they're small fry. We have a huge amount of capacity for wind and considerable for solar, we just need to get using more of it. We have one of the largest deposits of rare earth minerals in the world in the EU. Where we suffer is in lack of refining capacity.…

That is not true. Germany shutting down their atomic power plants had a rippling effect on the energy market in whole EU because they thought renewables would be enough to power the German industries. It was criticised by even the Sweden's Minister for Energy (Ebba Busch). Right now Germany is being de-industrialised because it's far expensive for the industries to produce goods there compared to other EU countries a…

Germany shut down their atomic power plants and replaced them with natural gas. They even fiddled the EU environmental rules such that natural gas was considered "part of the green transition". That all back-fired when Russia - the source of that natural gas - attempted to use it as leverage to take Ukraine.

We were screaming at them at the time that it was a very very dumb idea to close their nuclear power and against natural gas. As always we were right.

Climate activits? We've been sending riot police and disappearing them for 5 years now whilst the bands of knife carrying racists thugs, funded by America, roam around our streets causing all hell.

Re: Mistral's CEO: Europe has 2 years to stop becoming America's AI 'vassal state'

#143

Unfortunately Europe is already far behind. OpenAI started over a decade ago. How can Europe catch up? Maybe if progress slows down and they have time to at least get into the same position as Chinese models, but they also need to invest in it. But with what money? And why would talented people stay there instead of going to America where they can get a fairer share of their hard earned money? There’s so much more to…

The most telling part is when he explains that in order to grant stock options he had to navigate each and every single different legal setup for each one of the member states. I felt for a while the "European Union" has been turned into a foil for nations that had absolutely no intention to really integrate. Unless actual integration, simple one rule for all on the continent, happens within the next handfuls of mont…

I didn’t understand the “Trump ain’t Xi” part. As in he’s not as bad as the authoritarian nature of the CCP? Or that America is fading and China is a better ally?

Re: Mistral's CEO: Europe has 2 years to stop becoming America's AI 'vassal state'

#144
post #139
post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the HPC space, it has always been a "winner takes all" market. 90% or more of the business goes to the biggest provider with few exceptions (in terms of dollars, obviously all compute gets used). And, yeah, quite a bit of that is government having ... suboptimal ... developers who want to run bad code that nobody's allowed to look at. And yes, it is about weapons design, which is why nobody is allowed to look at (…

Very few governments outside of the US will let a US company "own" them. It is a national security issue. They just take a good enough locally made model.

The UK will

Poland will

NATO will

> They just take a good enough locally made model.

You're right that the question if that is an expensive mistake or not ... is for now an open question. However, even if Europe starts using it's own models, they'll be running on US chips.

Re: Mistral's CEO: Europe has 2 years to stop becoming America's AI 'vassal state'

#145

As a European I want mistral and EU to do well. But at the same time, I wouldn’t actually give up my well paid engineering job outside of EU to even entertain working for them in EU. Too low salaries and too high taxes.

This is a pervasive misconception in the industry, and a very dull trope on HN. Your income tax makes it possible to create a livable society in the EU. You get much more free time and are protected from a lot of random life events, even if you work in a McDonalds counter and not as a software engineer. You have rent, healthcare, protection from landlords. Not perfect, but at least the direction is there.

Solely profit-optimizing free market thinking destroys society and the planet.

Re: Mistral's CEO: Europe has 2 years to stop becoming America's AI 'vassal state'

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A vassal of California. I know we like to say that tech is the US but that's not true. It is almost completely focused around a small part of California. Take that out and Europe and the US are comparable with respect to software tech at least. Europe has a golden chance with the current mass outflux of talent from the US and I really hope we grasp it. I just don't see my country (NL) doing that as our political clas…

If California would burn down, the scene would recreate itself somewhere else (ny, austin, boston).

The tech companies could all move to Texas and the power would be there. They've all won. They all have their monopolies / duopolies.

They would never have been the success they were in the first place without California. It was the culture, the conditions (no non-competes) and the lax regulation (non-enforcement of rules aimed at avoiding monopolies which allowed Facebook to buy any emerging competitor not owned by the Chinese government) which created them.

Re: Mistral's CEO: Europe has 2 years to stop becoming America's AI 'vassal state'

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's only true at the micro level; at the macro level it is surprisingly stable over the EU zone + UK + Norway. There are capacity and interconnect issues but they're small fry. We have a huge amount of capacity for wind and considerable for solar, we just need to get using more of it. We have one of the largest deposits of rare earth minerals in the world in the EU. Where we suffer is in lack of refining capacity.…

That is not true. Germany shutting down their atomic power plants had a rippling effect on the energy market in whole EU because they thought renewables would be enough to power the German industries. It was criticised by even the Sweden's Minister for Energy (Ebba Busch). Right now Germany is being de-industrialised because it's far expensive for the industries to produce goods there compared to other EU countries a…

I do agree about China being way ahead and way smarter here, I should add. They've made America, Europe, Japan, India, Russia look really stupid. I've admired their strategic long term thinking for as long as I've been aware of it (~25 years now, they have a long history and deep rich culture and this is part of it).

Re: Mistral's CEO: Europe has 2 years to stop becoming America's AI 'vassal state'

#148
The EU created a € 94 billion fund for exactly this a couple of years ago. And then they put in charge a lawyer who is the daughter of a powerful Spanish media mogul.

I tried registering a couple of years ago, but it required a female co-founder, N employees in the EU, and a laundry list of ridiculous demands unrelated to technology or real startups.

And even the paperwork to start a company in the EU is a PITA. You have to incorporate in Bulgaria or something if you want anything in reasonable times. And good luck with Social Security and tax agencies.

Forget it.

Re: Mistral's CEO: Europe has 2 years to stop becoming America's AI 'vassal state'

#149

Deepseek is open source. Whats stopping them from distilling it and releasing their own model today? Where is the reliance on America? Gpus?

Deepseek is open-weight, not open-source afaik.

Recent DeepSeek models are MIT and Apache 2.0. You can see the licenses here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeepSeek#Development_and_relea....

Re: Mistral's CEO: Europe has 2 years to stop becoming America's AI 'vassal state'

#150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>you get less differences in wealth Yes so if you were in the higher percentiles of wealth, like many engineers in the US, you'd end up with less wealth in Europe, while if you were in the lower percentiles then in Europe you'd end up with more wealth. That's how redistribution works, the top 10% of income earners end up with less (even after accounting for healthcare and education; they get back less then they put i…

Could these software engineers be bankrupt if they are hit by a serious illness? Say progressive MS or a cancer, which will require extensive sick days? It is there protection? (this is an actual question, not an ironic one)

She's not a software engineer, just married to one and worked for software companies, and maybe I don't remember correctly, but she described a bit of her experience with the American system [1]:

> I should have taken medical leave at the first surgery, but my manager was confused about our status – the acquisition was so recent that I didn’t have six months as an Oracle employee, and she said, “You’re not eligible to take paid leave.”

> I couldn’t afford to take unpaid leave, and I was afraid I would lose my job and my health insurance, so I had to power on and pretend I was okay while I was really sick and taking an antibiotic that had horrible side effects.

> ...

[1] https://techiesproject.com/deirdre-straughan/

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