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Mistral built a $14B AI empire by not being American

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Re: Mistral built a $14B AI empire by not being American

#161

Post by vidarh »

snek_case wrote: post #65
vidarh wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless/until there is a risk that the chips themselves are backdoored and trying to exfiltrate data, European companies that host in Europe still solve a big problem for use of certain data in Europe. It's not a purity test. Relying on US chips in not the same deal-breaker for all but the most extreme situation as relying on a poorly regulated US company to run the inference.

Sure, but it's probably not that easy to exfiltrate multi-terabyte datasets without being detected.

That's kinda the point. It's a far more remote threat.

Re: Mistral built a $14B AI empire by not being American

#162

Post by pixel_popping »

s3tt3mbr1n1 wrote: post #106
ChemSpider wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and they are open about it. That is why they are building their own data centers in Paris and other places.

That’s true, but as their model quality is behind Kimi K2.6 or Deepseek v4, I believe it makes more sense to consume those Chinese models from a European hosting company like Scaleway, than to consume Mistral’s models hosted on US cloud providers, except if you see that Mistral subscription as a kind of investment into Mistral for them to buy infra in the future. That is, if your goal is to “consume” AI on European s…

Behind Deepseek R1 by far, they are at least 1 year late in model's performance.

Re: Mistral built a $14B AI empire by not being American

#163

Post by lenerdenator »

CGMthrowaway wrote: post #146
lenerdenator wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't think of a place on Earth less blessed by "not American" than the Middle East.

That all depends on your perspective

The "has worked very hard to make sure the US has a strategic interest in the region with regard to fossil fuels" perspective. The Saudis, in particular, have made it clear that if they don't get better deals than the average middle power does from the US, that it'd be very hard on the US economy because of their control over oil. There's a reason that you see so much in the way of defense and energy investment in the Kingdom, despite the almost diametrically-opposed cultures.

There's also Israel but that's getting into a whole thing that I don't want to sh*t the thread up with.

Re: Mistral built a $14B AI empire by not being American

#164

Post by jeroenhd »

nairboon wrote: post #34
jeroenhd wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI companies will find other ways to make money before global geopolitics find a new status quo. For the coming years, it seems like a perfectly fine business model. China isn't going to be friendly any time soon and so far America seems to be getting more in rather than less hostile. It wasn't that long ago that an American-Danish war was a realistic scenario.

> ... an American-Danish war was a realistic scenario. Was a scenario? Isn't it still a possible scenario? As far as I know, the President of the United States has never formally recognized and apologized for this blatant violation of the UN Charter Art. 2.4. For all we know, in the absence of this realization, the US is still plotting to violate the territorial integrity of Denmark.

He's been distracted by another war in the Middle East and a quick regime overthrow in Venezuela for now. It looks like Iran is going to keep him occupied for a while.

If the Americans who disagree with Trump are indeed the majority like they claim, this distraction only needs to last until the midterms.

Re: Mistral built a $14B AI empire by not being American

#165

Post by CGMthrowaway »

lenerdenator wrote: post #163
CGMthrowaway wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That all depends on your perspective

The "has worked very hard to make sure the US has a strategic interest in the region with regard to fossil fuels" perspective. The Saudis, in particular, have made it clear that if they don't get better deals than the average middle power does from the US, that it'd be very hard on the US economy because of their control over oil. There's a reason that you see so much in the way of defense and energy investment in th…

There is a decision leaders must make whether they want to play nice with the US, and accept the chains of servitude; or whether they want to fight (literally) for independence. The latter is not easy, but some have done it.

Re: Mistral built a $14B AI empire by not being American

#166

Post by 627467 »

pyrale wrote: post #118
mft_ wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know whether there’s a US vs. Europe difference on this, but I failed to get my (European) bank to do this a while back when Tesla continued to take money for a subscription after I’d given the car back. (I had to kill that credit card and write the small amount off in the end.)

While chargeback laws are a bit more restrictive in some EU countries, you should always have the option to ask your bank to block future charges, without changing your card.

A couple of years ago i found out netflix account was stolen, email address changed but card continued to be associated with the account. I couldn't login. Called Amex explained the situation and asked to block future payments. They refused on the basis that I agreed (originally) for netflix to take the subscription fee monthly so I had to contact netflix to solve to do this. Amex. The age where consumers have power over who takes money from them is gone

Re: Mistral built a $14B AI empire by not being American

#167

Post by Arodex »

joe_mamba wrote: post #148
Arodex wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What goalposts? Your sitting president, himself a conman is pardoning fraudsters left and right while he and his family enrich themselves with public money and extortion.

> Your sitting president, himself a conman Joke's on you, I'm European not American, so "your president" in this case would be the unelected Ursula and she would technically be a con-woman, not a con-man. Not sure what your argument was supposed to prove with this cheap jab though.

Ursula Van der Leyen was elected. Trump too.

If you argue she wasn't elected by the European population, well, Trump technically isn't too.

Re: Mistral built a $14B AI empire by not being American

#168

Post by Arodex »

joe_mamba wrote: post #149
selectodude wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The CEO of Enron was convicted and died two months before sentencing and the COO got 12 years. Interestingly the chief accountant of Enron ended up getting a job in Europe after he got out of prison.

>Interestingly the chief accountant of Enron ended up getting a job in Europe after he got out of prison. But, but ..Europeans here said they don't tolerate crooks.

The parent poster is implying things that aren't:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Fastow

Re: Mistral built a $14B AI empire by not being American

#169

Post by basilgohar »

dbl000 wrote: post #38
alxlaz wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use their API for several models, both for personal and professional use. I think their approach (smaller, specialised models that are well-adapted for specific tasks) is a very good fit for how I work. And even the more general-purpose ones, like the chat model, just... refreshingly good in a lot of ways. My "ruthless review" prompt, which I use for, well, ruthless, guided reviews of early technical drafts, has go…

That ruthless review prompt seems interesting, would you be willing to share it? I've been trying to have Claude act as a reviewer for me and it feels like it never will disagree.

I've found it helps to tell how to push back. You get to know where the additional guidance is needed after using it for a while.

Re: Mistral built a $14B AI empire by not being American

#170

Post by tzs »

ta20240528 wrote: post #105
hsuduebc2 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is changing somehow. At least on a surface. For example Amazon have created European subsidiary completely managed by Europeans under European company thus under it's local jurisdiction.

You are incorrect: 1. the 2018 CLOUD Act mandates US companies — and their subsidiaries — to provide information to the US government on demand, regardless of where the data is stored 2. FISA secret courts prevent companies from even saying they where summoned, or telling anyone who or what the case was about (including canaries). So you won't ever know if your data was handed over to the US government.

The whole point of setting up the EU subsidiary as a separate company that is incorporated in the EU and is managed and staffed by EU citizens is to avoid this.

The purpose of the CLOUD Act was to get at data that was stored outside the US but that was "in the custody, control, or possession of communications-service providers that are subject to the jurisdiction of the United States".

It arose from a situation where an email provider in the US used cloud storage services in several countries to store emails. They were asked for the email of a particular customer and said they did not have to provide it because they had happened to store that customer's mail at a non-US cloud provider.

What the CLOUD Act requires is that:

> A provider of electronic communication service or remote computing service shall comply with the obligations of this chapter to preserve, backup, or disclose the contents of a wire or electronic communication and any record or other information pertaining to a customer or subscriber within such provider's possession, custody, or control, regardless of whether such communication, record, or other information is located within or outside of the United States.

A company incorporated in the EU, even if it is owned by an entity in the US, is not subject to US jurisdiction and so that does not apply. The US owner is subject to US jurisdiction but the data of EU customers of the EU company is not in the US owner's possession, custody, or control.

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