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Notes from the Mistral AI Now Summit

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Re: Notes from the Mistral AI Now Summit

#221

Post by pembrook »

Fnoord wrote: post #203
pembrook wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what is keeping them back, though: Money? Compute? Skills? Training data? All of the above and more. Everything holding Mistral back is the same thing that has held Europe back from competing in the entire digital revolution. See this 1991 article lamenting the loss of any viable European PC manufacturer: https://www.nytimes.com/1991/04/22/business/europe-stumbles-... Mistral being in Europe is disadvantaged with:…

> European money is vacuumed out of the private sector into state pension funds and dumped into low yielding government bonds. Which countries do that? The ones in NL actually invest in US big tech. Once Europe stops investing in USA, Europe will be better able to compete. > Talent & compute: due to #1, Silicon Valley can outbid Europe for the best talent and hardware. Watch an OpenAI launch video and listen to all t…

> Which countries do that?

Every single one invests in government bonds with a large allocation. Aside from the pure ponzi scheme ones with no actual fund where its money in -> money out.

Also, if Europe stopped investing in US equities their pension insolvency problem would get about 2-3X worse given US equities have far exceeded EU equity returns over the past 20 years.

> Brain drain is happening due to bullying and fascism. The extend of longterm danage of current administration is unclear.

Huh? Did you even see the headline of the 1991 article I linked? Brain drain has been happening because of everything I listed which has been true for decades. Europe couldn't come up with a relevant company in PCs, Operating Systems, Internet 1.0, Social media, Mobile, AI, etc. None of it is due to the current administration.

> Bollocks. I have been in Berlin and Munich various times past decades, and people there speak English very well.

Yes, and while you were traveling to tourist capitals occasionally I've been actually living in Europe. Your perception is not the reality the average German person lives.

The problem isn't that the smartest Engineers in Europe don't speak english. The problem is that the average person in the markets they would sell into don't speak a common language.

Kind of hard to cut deals and build a brand among 27 different insular, hyper nationalist markets in a bunch of languages you don't speak with completely different regulations.

Re: Notes from the Mistral AI Now Summit

#222

Post by WhyComboNadir »

mike_hearn wrote: post #194
WhyComboNadir wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

re: #4 Maybe it’s easier if you grow up in the system and know how to navigate the written and unwritten rules, but as a dual Canadian-American who recently gained Austrian citizenship, the regulatory friction is absolutely real. I decided to launch a new venture through an Austrian GmbH. There are supposedly streamlined paths for local residents, but I had to go through the standard corporate pipeline. I spent three…

That catch-22 is supposed to be broken by the bank. It's a two phase commit where you open the account in a special state where you can only deposit the capital. Then the bank gives you evidence you've done so, you take that to the notary and open the company, then send the evidence you've done that back to the bank to convert it into a full account. It's a bizarre system that Switzerland uses too. I've done it twice…

re: catch-22. I was surprised to learn of it, but then even more surprised to get caught up in an endless loop even when I followed the process.

For European countries it seems like a left-hand-right-hand problem: I go to a party at the Los Angeles Austrian consulate, or a "Start Up Austria" event in SF and listen to them pitch bringing businesses to Austria (the left hand). But back home the "right hand" and culture seems to look down at people who have accumulated wealth, and be hostile to the idea of the most simple reforms that would actually make someone want to move their business to Austria/EU. For example, the intrenched interests of needing a notary paid a few thousand Euros, are screwing the whole country so one set of people can fill an archaic role.

Do you know how much a notary costs in the US? If you go to a UPS or FedEx store, it is typically about $10-15. If you go to your own bank they do it for free.

And get this, when you incorporate a company in a US state, guess how many things need to be notarized? None. As you fill out the forms you are swearing to their truth, and accepting a notice that you are committing perjury if you are untruthful. Do they check your statements right then to make sure you're not lying - absolutely not! Why bother, you haven't started anything yet. But by God, if 5 years later when you're making money, the IRS finds out that you lied, then you're going to wish you were living in another country.

In other words, the timeframe for the risk concern is completely backwards in Europe: the risk management basically stops 95% of things from happening in the first place, including the 0.001% the might be fraudulent. Wouldn't it be better to let 1,000,000+ companies get formed, then 50,000 of them naturally become a meaningful success, then take a closer look at their compliance once they are truly a real business.

I had some ignorant biases against doing business in Europe before starting this process - and I was hoping that experience would change my mind - but the funny thing is that my biases weren't strong enough! (my bank and incorporating story above is just one example of many). No thank you EU!

(My first businesses were started in Canada, and I thought Canada was so backwards compared to the US in being business friendly, but now I realize Canada is maybe 90% as business friendly as the USA. EU, in my experience is like 5% as business friendly as USA)

Re: Notes from the Mistral AI Now Summit

#223

Post by Shitty-kitty »

pembrook wrote: post #148
Shitty-kitty wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social Security and Medicare are vastly inferior to their European counterparts. Medicaid is an absolute disaster and a large number of doctors and health facilities will not even accept it.

Not true in the case of average social security payouts. But again, this argument is a total derailing of this thread and addresses none of my points. Explain to me how expanding US single payer healthcare suddenly makes the US a worse place to do business in than Europe? Companies would love not having to deal with the complexities of 401ks and employer health plans.

You must have misunderstood me. I never argued that US single payer healthcare would be bad, just that one based on expanding medicaid bottom-rung insurance, would not be adequate.

Re: Notes from the Mistral AI Now Summit

#224

Post by Saline9515 »

Matl wrote: post #169
Saline9515 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American companies can't sur Chinese ones, but they can do it with European ones.

So then the European ones should join with European copyright holders to sue OpenAI/Anthropic and watch them trying to BS their way around what they train on.

Training a model on copyrighted material is fair use and copyright holders already operate a mafia-style extortion ring in Europe, so I don't think that's a good idea.

Re: Notes from the Mistral AI Now Summit

#225

Post by snowpid »

PeterStuer wrote: post #216
snowpid wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"they can't anchor EU ip and talent because our politicians are too intertwined with globalist ideology and capital." You want to force staying in the EU?

You think other regions do not anchor strategic industries? The EU is extremely lax in this regard.

so why do you use the term globalist? Most talent is globalist anyway.

Re: Notes from the Mistral AI Now Summit

#226

Post by vrganj »

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #220
vrganj wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that while y'all were appreciated members and definitely had a lot to offer, you also had a lot of annoying carve-outs and kept stalling needed measures to federalize and strengthen the EU more so we can be a proper superpower in our own right. Maybe it's good you left for now, maybe we can finally get these things done. And once that's accomplished and enough of the gammon has died off, you can always rejoin…

The UK was a useful stalking horse for lots of smaller countries to push back against federalisation, it's not just them. They also have the obvious place for any common EU market (which is desperately needed). Brexit has been bad for everyone involved.

Sure, but the smaller countries don't have the political capital to resist federalization long term like the Brits did.

Re: Notes from the Mistral AI Now Summit

#227

Post by gspr »

xienze wrote: post #47
gspr wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're saying AI models should be allowed to freely "manipulate human behavior"?

The problem is that statement is a bit too open to interpretation. Ever had Claude piss you off by being stupid and talking in circles? Sounds like manipulation of human behavior!

No reasonable person would find a system's annoying behavior on its own manipulative. It could, however, be considered manipulative if it was made that way on purpose.

Re: Notes from the Mistral AI Now Summit

#228

Post by rldjbpin »

Oras wrote: post #63

Sounds like they don’t have a moat at all. It’s like software consultancy with a data centre. And then the article mentions many customers using these models on prem (so data centre is not really a plus). What’s stopping any country backed startup from fine-tuning small open source models?

their moat is where they are based from and that they are making their own models. they have been before the distillation era in the open-weights model.

their model's efficacy for the mainstream comparisons may not be up to the task, but they are pivoting to their own lane for it. but the scope beyond the local market, it is yet to be seen.

Re: Notes from the Mistral AI Now Summit

#229

Post by Matl »

Saline9515 wrote: post #224
Matl wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So then the European ones should join with European copyright holders to sue OpenAI/Anthropic and watch them trying to BS their way around what they train on.

Training a model on copyrighted material is fair use and copyright holders already operate a mafia-style extortion ring in Europe, so I don't think that's a good idea.

> Training a model on copyrighted material is fair use

I am not sure this has been actually established, but I don't see how distilling a model is not fair use then.

Re: Notes from the Mistral AI Now Summit

#230

Post by amunozo »

jononor wrote: post #187
Matl wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's against the OpenAI ToU Given that OpenAI doesn't care about training on copyrighted data, why is suddenly their ToU something anyone should care about?

That OpenAI was in the wrong when they ignored everyone copyright, does not make it right to ignore their ToU. If a one wants IP and rule of law (incl contracts) to be respected, one should not violate others rights when it is convenient. On a more risk-strategy level there is the size of their legal team, general endowment, and supplier and political connections to consider. Everyone is free to ignore their ToU, but…

As we say in Spanish, "quien roba a un ladrón tiene cien años de perdón".
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