12 ms·

Here's my hypothesis of what is going on: 1. Europe can't do computers. This is bad for them, because foreign companies, who can do computers, make money in Eu

by dash2 4y ago

Here's my hypothesis of what is going on: 1. Europe can't do computers. This is bad for them, because foreign companies, who can do computers, make money in Europe and beat out the local competition. 2. But the EU has discovered that it can extract money by threatening to ban the foreign companies for reasons of privacy, data protection etc. 3. Since the EU is a valuable market, the companies accept the fines as a price of doing business. 4. Italy is getting in early by firing a shot across the bows of OpenAI, which is not yet a huge moneymaker, but may be in future.

GalenErso 4y ago
> Since the EU is a valuable market For how long? A market is large because it has highly productive economies. If Europe can't hack computers, as you say, their growth potential will be curtailed.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > Europe can't hack computers, as you say, their growth potential will be curtailed European industry is alive and well, and it can buy the tools it needs from American companies. To the degree "Europe can't hack computers" is less of a ridiculous oversimplification, it's with pertinence to the consumer market.
  - shuckles 4y ago
    Is it really alive and well or is it mostly booking profits for activities conducted elsewhere in the world? How much R&D, manufacturing, or distribution do the ABBs and Siemens of the world actually depend physically on the EU for?
    - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
      > How much R&D, manufacturing, or distribution do the ABBs and Siemens of the world actually depend physically on the EU for European heavy industry expertise is deep [1]. It also undergirds a lot of America production; Rheinmetall, for instance, designs and builds the M1 Abrams’ gun. In light industry, ASML is the product of a distributed precision manufacturing culture. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_European_manufacturing_companies_by_revenue https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_European_man...
- discreteevent 4y ago
  They could make other things and trade them with the people who do computers?
- robopsychology 4y ago
  The EU has a higher GDP than the US (albeit they're very close). A lot of strong engineering comes out of Europe, for example Arm or the self-driving work by Mercedes.
  - areyousure 4y ago
    (I did not downvote the parent comment.) > The EU has a higher GDP than the US (albeit they're very close). In case anyone was curious, the IMF currently believes that the US's GDP is 50% higher than the EU's = 40% higher per capita. https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/profile/EU https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/profile/EU https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/profile/USA https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/profile/USA
    - robopsychology 4y ago
      You're right per capita, but as a total market the EU is larger.
      - pb7 4y ago
        It's literally not though. EU has a higher population and lower total GDP.
        robopsychology 4y ago
        You’re right, I was looking at 2015 data
  - pb7 4y ago
    US GDP per capita: $75K (PPP), $75K (nominal) EU GDP per capita: $54K (PPP), $37K (nominal) It's not even close. Waymo is years ahead of anything coming out of Mercedes.
    - robopsychology 4y ago
      Which cars can you buy with Level 3 self-driving in the US? What states allow Waymo Level 3+ driving? Yes I can get around the SF Finance District if I sign up to be a beta tester with Waymo, and they do run in Pheonix, but Mercedes has full Level 3 signed off in Nevada. In fact Mercedes have said they will take ownership of self-driving accidents while Tesla for example points it to the individual driving.
buran77 4y ago
Is your view specifically applicable to EU bans on US related tech, or would you extend it to the US bans on Chinese related tech? If there's a "but" in there then maybe your hypothesis isn't too solid.
- pb7 4y ago
  China bans US tech, US bans China tech, tit for tat. The difference between US and Europe is that US actually creates things.
  - buran77 4y ago
    Your generalization of an entire continent is quite offensive (more towards yourself, really). But going past that, sometimes creating things comes with a cost, like privacy. And now you see this dissonance where on one hand we lament the status of today's privacy, while at the same time calling any attempt to limit the damage a sign of incompetence. As for your "tit for tat" explanation, it would hold a lot more water if the bans didn't target (almost?) exclusively the areas where China is pulling ahead.
    - pb7 4y ago
      It's not a generalization, it is a verifiable observation: Europe creates significantly less. If that's offensive to you then it's time to reflect on what caused you to be in this position.
  - lm28469 4y ago
    > The difference between US and Europe is that US actually creates things. If you want to generalise like that you can even remove the US and swap it for "California" or even "the 100km surrounding mountain view"
FranzFerdiNaN 4y ago
Or 5. American companies have shown a complete disrespect of (privacy) laws and thus get hit by the appropriate regulators.
- patrakov 4y ago
  I can't see it this way. The recent leak was entirely due to the redis-py bug. Any other company that used redis-py together with asyncio would have had the same leak (and this is fixed already), but, for some reason, only ChatGPT is being punished. Also, short of running all third-party source code through expensive auditors and insurance companies, there was no way to prevent or mitigate this. If they continue to enforce this without also making all liability-limitation clauses in software licenses invalid (and thus killing non-commercial software, including OSS), I would treat this as something very hypocritical.
version_five 4y ago
That sounds directly correct. I don't see a problem with intelligent regulation, especially around what kinds of decisions or interactions involve the technology. But it seems like the people who want to "pause" or stop it span the spectrum from jealousy to inferiority to straight up lack of capability. If they'd got there first, they wouldn't be trying to shut it down. All that said, it would be good to see some intelligent regulation, the development of which involves real businesses that have uses and not the usual suspects.
- boogersnbananas 4y ago
  I question whether or not regulators and policy can keep up with the pace of AI. Where we are going (and fast) seems to be a place where the tools themselves can write policy and tooling better than we can. That has to shake the upper ranks of government around the globe, their job is policy and laws that the laymen can’t really interpret or understand, yet provides some sort of societal service. Regulation on facts and how AI can know the truth, and be ethical - we already have those rules for humans, we should just build these regulatory instruments as extensions of that or begin the work of discussing AI rights, and use all our hard work on those laws and save some time and heartache. Obviously it’s not sentient, but we are getting close to the point that it could happen at any moment.
  - version_five 4y ago
    we are getting close to the point that it could happen at any moment No.
pastor_bob 4y ago
Do you think companies should be allowed to scan your face and deny you entry if your Linkedin profile ties you to a law firm?
inductive_magic 4y ago
Meh, Hanlon's Razor. I don't know about Italy, but so far, I don't expect legislative action regarding ChatGPT in Germany. It would be an insanely unpopular decision and contribute nothing to SPD/FDP's voters. It doesn't add up, and the article is full of nothing. The state of privacy in Germany can be summed up nicely by quoting the data privacy officer of Hamburg from a couple of weeks ago: "Principles for avoiding and minimizing the processing of personal information, which are enshrined in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), among other things, "will be unable to be upheld."
- AbrahamParangi 4y ago
  Pet peeve but I think Hanlon’s Razor is fundamentally wrong. Any ecosystem where it’s believed is an ecosystem which evolutionarily favors malice, which implies that it’s not true. Thus, you should follow Hanlon’s razor only if others don’t.
  - Avicebron 4y ago
    I'm not sure I follow? You don't think the current ecosystem favors malice? Even if I don't have actively malicious intentions, I think it's fair to say that if the actions I take to advance myself over others have negative externalities (at various scales obviously), I've engendered "malice" in the ecosystem.
    - digging 4y ago
      It took a couple reads, but I believe what they meant was: Any ecosystem where incompetence is assumed over malice creates material incentives for malice, because plausible deniability is fundamental to its environment. Therefore, malice is encouraged and becomes more likely, invalidating the theory. As for your reply, I'm not actually sure what to make of it or how it relates to the previous comment, so I can't comment.
      - AbrahamParangi 4y ago
        Indeed, and let this be a lesson to myself in writing clearly!
radicalbyte 4y ago
> 1. Europe can't do computers. This is bad for them, because > foreign companies, who can do computers, make money in Europe > and beat out the local competition. As a huge Microsoft fan and Linux hater I totally agree. Europe can't do computing. ;-) [EDIT: can't believe I have to state this.. but this is a joke. That's why I'm winking. Poking fun at the idea that "Europe is bad at computers" when the dominant server OS is literally European with the field being established by the late Alan Turing who was.. British. Who also made the first programmable digital computer].
standardUser 4y ago
It's not that there isn't some truth to what you've said, but to assert that this is the fundamental underlying motivation for political perspectives throughout Europe is an indefensible conspiracy theory.
- kurthr 4y ago
  I agree it's complicated and European politics particularly so. It seems more like they don't have any economic interest in letting it spread quickly so slowing it down and taxing it "just in case" is a perfectly rational political action.
AmericanChopper 4y ago
It’s always been my opinion that GDPR and some of the other European regulations are simply trade tariffs draped in a more publicly appealing disguise, given the only tangible outcome they’ve achieved is extracting money from foreign companies. This isn’t an opinion that’s ever been welcomed on HN though.
- radicalbyte 4y ago
  They apply equally to EU companies as US companies. They're very much not a trade tariff. Actually US companies have an advantage as it's much easier for them to just ignore the laws / they have certain ways of getting around the laws that do not apply to EU companies.
  - AmericanChopper 4y ago
    Go look at the enforcement statistics and tell me again how equally they apply. Even if you presume there is no enforcement bias whatsoever, it’s still going to act as a trade tariff due to the enormous trade deficit the EU has in regards to digital services.
    - radicalbyte 4y ago
      OK I have experience here: US companies are far more likely to break the law. It's extremely hard to get US based CTOs in particular to understand the GDPR, they literally ignore it. Then stuff happens and they get in trouble. What makes it worse: the GDPR itself is a great example of cultural differences: Americans are happy to eat bleached chicken and for all of their lives and personal data be there to make big companies lots of money. Europeans very much do not think like that. Which is good, different strokes for different folks.
      - cccbbbaaa 4y ago
        Which is to be expected: GDPR basically is a harmonisation of the various privacy laws that existed in various member states before.
neom 4y ago
Why is the EU a valuable market? Canada, Mexico, Brazil, middle east, South Korea, Philippines...? Big markets are out there.
- brg 4y ago
  For tech, mobile games and advertising, it is 15% of global market.
  - neom 4y ago
    I'm saying for a company like OAI, is Europe really that valuable? There's a lot of market out there, I'm not sure the EU moves the needle in the long run for a technology like this. I'm not trying to pick a fight, just that for OAI, Europe might not matter.
yulaow 4y ago
I don't understand this thinking. The gdpr is law since years, this is SIMPLY a case of a company not respecting it and paying the price, there is literally nothing else going on
simion314 4y ago
I think many people do not read the article, this is not about AI technology, there was data leak and OpenAI did not follow the law and disclose this to the affected people and follow all the steps. Not they are investigated and other illegal stuff was found. At this moment there is no "EU wants to ban AI" attempt. So OpenAI competitors, make sure to follow the laws and you will have a market in EU.
tinco 4y ago
We might not do computers, but we can do software just fine. With all the published research out there, and the base of the datasets being out there, and the fact that Europe has boatloads of money it's only a matter of time until there's a European GPTX alternative. Maybe delaying ChatGPT by a little opens up the market for an EU competitor, China style. I don't think that's very realistic because the EU doesn't move fast enough but who knows.
- dicomdan 4y ago
  EU is very different from China. Environment is not friendly towards software entrepreneurs.
rocgf 4y ago
I'm sorry, but this is lazy at best. > But the EU has discovered that it can extract money by threatening to ban the foreign companies for reasons of privacy, data protection etc. So your argument is that the EU, with trillions of dollars in GDP, decides to shoot itself in the foot by blocking one of the biggest inventions ever in order to "extract" a few millions of dollars here and there.
- kimi 4y ago
  At least it would not be pure short-sightedness. They would be shooting themselves in the foot for something.
wdb 4y ago
What do you mean Europe can't do computers? ASML is based in the Europe. America can't do much computer wise without ASML machines
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  >America can't do much computer wise without ASML machines That's such a narrow minded view, and that's coming from an European. Can you do much in Europe, computer wise, without Office365, Android, iPhone, Gmail, Google, AWS, Intel, AMD, Apple, Quallcomm, Azure, Windows? Go ahead and try to buy a PC with European CPUs, GPUs, ruining European software. Or buy a European smartphone ruining an European SoC and modem with an European OS. And ASML's golden goose, EUV tech, is an US invention licensed to ASML which can be revoked anytime if they sell EUV machines to China or any other US adversary, the restriction which is hurting ASML's bottom line as China is hungry for lithography machines and will pay top dollar for them. ASML got to where it is precisely because of the US assistance: https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/65642319 https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/65642319
  - wdb 4y ago
    And Carl Zeiss is probably also using some US invention?
    - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
      Your point?
microtonal 4y ago
Europe can't do computers. This is bad for them, because foreign companies, who can do computers, make money in Europe and beat out the local competition. Not this again. Europe fails on producing unicorn that grow by exploiting people's addictions (Facebook), externalizing cost (Uber, AirBnB). However, Europe does fine in computing. The chips in you cell phone and computer are most likely made with an eUV machine from ASML, it probably has a bunch of NXP chips in it too. Europe has huge business software companies like SAP. Europe also has plenty of unicorns, like Klarna, Spotify, Revolut, Mollie, Just Eat/Takeaway etc. You may not know about all of them, because they operate primarily in Europe, like there are also plenty of US unicorns that barely have any footing in Europe.
- digging 4y ago
  Americans tend to assume every successful tech company is founded in America. Whenever Ubisoft is in gaming news, there are always Americans surprised to learn they're French.
  - pb7 4y ago
    Activision-Blizzard, Epic, Microsoft, Take-Two, Electronic Arts, and Sony (partially) are all American and have 10x the revenue. China and Japan are both ahead of EU as a whole.
    - digging 4y ago
      [flagged]
      - pb7 4y ago
        I disagree, I find it quite relevant that a larger population somehow has less than 1/10th of the market share in products they consume at an equal rate. One large successful company in a massive industry (video games) is nothing to be proud of when you have 450M people -- it is troubling.
        4y ago
lm28469 4y ago
The problem that I think a lot of americans don't get is that Europe isn't the US. It's not "money above all" "move fast and break things" "disrupt everything and ignore the law until you're profitable". We do care about privacy, worker's right, &c. and we do understand that allowing foreign, especially american, companies to break things isn't a net benefit for us. Uber abusing their """contractors""" despite the fact that they clearly are employees and should therefore have the same rights as other employees E-mobility companies using public infrastructure (paid by local taxes) while themselves tax evading their profit Airbnb allowing people to transform their regular flats into full time 365/365 hotel rooms despite the housing crisis
- ActorNightly 4y ago
  >We do care about privacy Nobody in the world actually cares about privacy. All the GDPR stuff did was ruin every website on the internet, most people click accept all, few people click deny because they are paranoid, everyone still uses instagram, facebook, and iphones which constantly broadcast your information to Apple. e.t.c. But at least the politicians get to strut around pretending like they did something. >worker's right No, you guys care about worker equality. Workers right means that if I want to work extra to beat my colleagues for promotion, and forgo having a family, I should be able to. EU laws say, "No, you cannot do this because its unfair to all the people that want to have families and work less". To be clear, worker equality is not a bad thing, since it does guarantee a lot of protection, but on the flip side, it doesn't allow for as much innovation. EU could easily beat US if it allowed the same level of corporate freedom instead of trying to pass labor regulation laws, and focused resources of worker protection on things like unemployment insurance.
  - lm28469 4y ago
    > All the GDPR stuff did was ruin every website on the internet, most people click accept all, few people click deny because they are paranoid, everyone still uses instagram, facebook, and iphones which constantly broadcast your information to Apple. e.t.c. But at least the politicians get to strut around pretending like they did something. Then you clearly don't know what GDPR is and how different companies treat data in the US and in Europe. > No, you guys care about worker equality Ok, call it whatever you want, is it mathematically and objectively inferior to your superior American Standards Of Ethics And Morals ? Just follow the damn law, it's really not that hard. Add a pop up, ask for consent, detail what the data is used for, don't collect what you don't need. It really isn't hard, if you american super-geniuses can't do that you should stop flexing your tech capabilities. 90% of what is in GDPR should be standard when handling data, if you can't comply with it you don't care about data privacy in the first place. > EU could easily beat US Beat it at what game ? You're exactly the stereotype I'm talking about, if all that matter is money then you're 100% right. But then again if we talk about social security, paid parental leave, paid vacation, work life balance, &c. it's a whole other story. Feel free to do whatever you want in your country but don't come to other continents and try to force it down out throats > EU laws say, "No, you cannot do this because its unfair to all the people that want to have families and work less". Which law are you referencing ?
thefz 4y ago
This is more or less all wrong. GDPR is not there to make companies pay and keep on committing crime, but rather to make them correct their business to be compliant. Fines are laughably low. Besides, the whole GDPR is in place to protect European citizens from abuse of a fundamental right, which is privacy, from commercial and not commercial actors. If you are willing to give out everything about you for the latest new iToy and not receive a cent, be my guest, nobody is going to stop you in America. But here, we have regulations in place to prevent the overselling and oversharing of customer's own data. Besides, "Europe can't do computers", Linux is a Finnish creation, as an example. You are confusing factories that produce hardware with the software that runs on it.
Woeps 4y ago
1, Europe cannot do hardware very well... on this I agree, software is okay but not close on the scale of US/China (or they start in Europe). 2 3 & 4, Wüt? That's not how these bans work... So could you please elaborate further?

by dash2 4y ago

GalenErso 4y ago

> Since the EU is a valuable market For how long? A market is large because it has highly productive economies. If Europe can't hack computers, as you say, their growth potential will be curtailed.

JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> Europe can't hack computers, as you say, their growth potential will be curtailed European industry is alive and well, and it can buy the tools it needs from American companies. To the degree "Europe can't hack computers" is less of a ridiculous oversimplification, it's with pertinence to the consumer market.
- shuckles 4y ago
  Is it really alive and well or is it mostly booking profits for activities conducted elsewhere in the world? How much R&D, manufacturing, or distribution do the ABBs and Siemens of the world actually depend physically on the EU for?
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > How much R&D, manufacturing, or distribution do the ABBs and Siemens of the world actually depend physically on the EU for European heavy industry expertise is deep [1]. It also undergirds a lot of America production; Rheinmetall, for instance, designs and builds the M1 Abrams’ gun. In light industry, ASML is the product of a distributed precision manufacturing culture. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_European_manufacturing_companies_by_revenue https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_European_man...
discreteevent 4y ago
They could make other things and trade them with the people who do computers?
robopsychology 4y ago
The EU has a higher GDP than the US (albeit they're very close). A lot of strong engineering comes out of Europe, for example Arm or the self-driving work by Mercedes.
- areyousure 4y ago
  (I did not downvote the parent comment.) > The EU has a higher GDP than the US (albeit they're very close). In case anyone was curious, the IMF currently believes that the US's GDP is 50% higher than the EU's = 40% higher per capita. https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/profile/EU https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/profile/EU https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/profile/USA https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/profile/USA
  - robopsychology 4y ago
    You're right per capita, but as a total market the EU is larger.
    - pb7 4y ago
      It's literally not though. EU has a higher population and lower total GDP.
      - robopsychology 4y ago
        You’re right, I was looking at 2015 data
- pb7 4y ago
  US GDP per capita: $75K (PPP), $75K (nominal) EU GDP per capita: $54K (PPP), $37K (nominal) It's not even close. Waymo is years ahead of anything coming out of Mercedes.
  - robopsychology 4y ago
    Which cars can you buy with Level 3 self-driving in the US? What states allow Waymo Level 3+ driving? Yes I can get around the SF Finance District if I sign up to be a beta tester with Waymo, and they do run in Pheonix, but Mercedes has full Level 3 signed off in Nevada. In fact Mercedes have said they will take ownership of self-driving accidents while Tesla for example points it to the individual driving.

buran77 4y ago

Is your view specifically applicable to EU bans on US related tech, or would you extend it to the US bans on Chinese related tech? If there's a "but" in there then maybe your hypothesis isn't too solid.

pb7 4y ago
China bans US tech, US bans China tech, tit for tat. The difference between US and Europe is that US actually creates things.
- buran77 4y ago
  Your generalization of an entire continent is quite offensive (more towards yourself, really). But going past that, sometimes creating things comes with a cost, like privacy. And now you see this dissonance where on one hand we lament the status of today's privacy, while at the same time calling any attempt to limit the damage a sign of incompetence. As for your "tit for tat" explanation, it would hold a lot more water if the bans didn't target (almost?) exclusively the areas where China is pulling ahead.
  - pb7 4y ago
    It's not a generalization, it is a verifiable observation: Europe creates significantly less. If that's offensive to you then it's time to reflect on what caused you to be in this position.
- lm28469 4y ago
  > The difference between US and Europe is that US actually creates things. If you want to generalise like that you can even remove the US and swap it for "California" or even "the 100km surrounding mountain view"

FranzFerdiNaN 4y ago

Or 5. American companies have shown a complete disrespect of (privacy) laws and thus get hit by the appropriate regulators.

patrakov 4y ago
I can't see it this way. The recent leak was entirely due to the redis-py bug. Any other company that used redis-py together with asyncio would have had the same leak (and this is fixed already), but, for some reason, only ChatGPT is being punished. Also, short of running all third-party source code through expensive auditors and insurance companies, there was no way to prevent or mitigate this. If they continue to enforce this without also making all liability-limitation clauses in software licenses invalid (and thus killing non-commercial software, including OSS), I would treat this as something very hypocritical.

version_five 4y ago

That sounds directly correct. I don't see a problem with intelligent regulation, especially around what kinds of decisions or interactions involve the technology. But it seems like the people who want to "pause" or stop it span the spectrum from jealousy to inferiority to straight up lack of capability. If they'd got there first, they wouldn't be trying to shut it down. All that said, it would be good to see some intelligent regulation, the development of which involves real businesses that have uses and not the usual suspects.

boogersnbananas 4y ago
I question whether or not regulators and policy can keep up with the pace of AI. Where we are going (and fast) seems to be a place where the tools themselves can write policy and tooling better than we can. That has to shake the upper ranks of government around the globe, their job is policy and laws that the laymen can’t really interpret or understand, yet provides some sort of societal service. Regulation on facts and how AI can know the truth, and be ethical - we already have those rules for humans, we should just build these regulatory instruments as extensions of that or begin the work of discussing AI rights, and use all our hard work on those laws and save some time and heartache. Obviously it’s not sentient, but we are getting close to the point that it could happen at any moment.
- version_five 4y ago
  we are getting close to the point that it could happen at any moment No.

pastor_bob 4y ago

Do you think companies should be allowed to scan your face and deny you entry if your Linkedin profile ties you to a law firm?

inductive_magic 4y ago

Meh, Hanlon's Razor. I don't know about Italy, but so far, I don't expect legislative action regarding ChatGPT in Germany. It would be an insanely unpopular decision and contribute nothing to SPD/FDP's voters. It doesn't add up, and the article is full of nothing. The state of privacy in Germany can be summed up nicely by quoting the data privacy officer of Hamburg from a couple of weeks ago: "Principles for avoiding and minimizing the processing of personal information, which are enshrined in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), among other things, "will be unable to be upheld."

AbrahamParangi 4y ago
Pet peeve but I think Hanlon’s Razor is fundamentally wrong. Any ecosystem where it’s believed is an ecosystem which evolutionarily favors malice, which implies that it’s not true. Thus, you should follow Hanlon’s razor only if others don’t.
- Avicebron 4y ago
  I'm not sure I follow? You don't think the current ecosystem favors malice? Even if I don't have actively malicious intentions, I think it's fair to say that if the actions I take to advance myself over others have negative externalities (at various scales obviously), I've engendered "malice" in the ecosystem.
  - digging 4y ago
    It took a couple reads, but I believe what they meant was: Any ecosystem where incompetence is assumed over malice creates material incentives for malice, because plausible deniability is fundamental to its environment. Therefore, malice is encouraged and becomes more likely, invalidating the theory. As for your reply, I'm not actually sure what to make of it or how it relates to the previous comment, so I can't comment.
    - AbrahamParangi 4y ago
      Indeed, and let this be a lesson to myself in writing clearly!

radicalbyte 4y ago

> 1. Europe can't do computers. This is bad for them, because > foreign companies, who can do computers, make money in Europe > and beat out the local competition. As a huge Microsoft fan and Linux hater I totally agree. Europe can't do computing. ;-) [EDIT: can't believe I have to state this.. but this is a joke. That's why I'm winking. Poking fun at the idea that "Europe is bad at computers" when the dominant server OS is literally European with the field being established by the late Alan Turing who was.. British. Who also made the first programmable digital computer].

standardUser 4y ago

It's not that there isn't some truth to what you've said, but to assert that this is the fundamental underlying motivation for political perspectives throughout Europe is an indefensible conspiracy theory.

kurthr 4y ago
I agree it's complicated and European politics particularly so. It seems more like they don't have any economic interest in letting it spread quickly so slowing it down and taxing it "just in case" is a perfectly rational political action.

AmericanChopper 4y ago

It’s always been my opinion that GDPR and some of the other European regulations are simply trade tariffs draped in a more publicly appealing disguise, given the only tangible outcome they’ve achieved is extracting money from foreign companies. This isn’t an opinion that’s ever been welcomed on HN though.

radicalbyte 4y ago
They apply equally to EU companies as US companies. They're very much not a trade tariff. Actually US companies have an advantage as it's much easier for them to just ignore the laws / they have certain ways of getting around the laws that do not apply to EU companies.
- AmericanChopper 4y ago
  Go look at the enforcement statistics and tell me again how equally they apply. Even if you presume there is no enforcement bias whatsoever, it’s still going to act as a trade tariff due to the enormous trade deficit the EU has in regards to digital services.
  - radicalbyte 4y ago
    OK I have experience here: US companies are far more likely to break the law. It's extremely hard to get US based CTOs in particular to understand the GDPR, they literally ignore it. Then stuff happens and they get in trouble. What makes it worse: the GDPR itself is a great example of cultural differences: Americans are happy to eat bleached chicken and for all of their lives and personal data be there to make big companies lots of money. Europeans very much do not think like that. Which is good, different strokes for different folks.
    - cccbbbaaa 4y ago
      Which is to be expected: GDPR basically is a harmonisation of the various privacy laws that existed in various member states before.

neom 4y ago

Why is the EU a valuable market? Canada, Mexico, Brazil, middle east, South Korea, Philippines...? Big markets are out there.

brg 4y ago
For tech, mobile games and advertising, it is 15% of global market.
- neom 4y ago
  I'm saying for a company like OAI, is Europe really that valuable? There's a lot of market out there, I'm not sure the EU moves the needle in the long run for a technology like this. I'm not trying to pick a fight, just that for OAI, Europe might not matter.

yulaow 4y ago

I don't understand this thinking. The gdpr is law since years, this is SIMPLY a case of a company not respecting it and paying the price, there is literally nothing else going on

simion314 4y ago

I think many people do not read the article, this is not about AI technology, there was data leak and OpenAI did not follow the law and disclose this to the affected people and follow all the steps. Not they are investigated and other illegal stuff was found. At this moment there is no "EU wants to ban AI" attempt. So OpenAI competitors, make sure to follow the laws and you will have a market in EU.

tinco 4y ago

We might not do computers, but we can do software just fine. With all the published research out there, and the base of the datasets being out there, and the fact that Europe has boatloads of money it's only a matter of time until there's a European GPTX alternative. Maybe delaying ChatGPT by a little opens up the market for an EU competitor, China style. I don't think that's very realistic because the EU doesn't move fast enough but who knows.

dicomdan 4y ago
EU is very different from China. Environment is not friendly towards software entrepreneurs.

rocgf 4y ago

I'm sorry, but this is lazy at best. > But the EU has discovered that it can extract money by threatening to ban the foreign companies for reasons of privacy, data protection etc. So your argument is that the EU, with trillions of dollars in GDP, decides to shoot itself in the foot by blocking one of the biggest inventions ever in order to "extract" a few millions of dollars here and there.

kimi 4y ago
At least it would not be pure short-sightedness. They would be shooting themselves in the foot for something.

wdb 4y ago

What do you mean Europe can't do computers? ASML is based in the Europe. America can't do much computer wise without ASML machines

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
>America can't do much computer wise without ASML machines That's such a narrow minded view, and that's coming from an European. Can you do much in Europe, computer wise, without Office365, Android, iPhone, Gmail, Google, AWS, Intel, AMD, Apple, Quallcomm, Azure, Windows? Go ahead and try to buy a PC with European CPUs, GPUs, ruining European software. Or buy a European smartphone ruining an European SoC and modem with an European OS. And ASML's golden goose, EUV tech, is an US invention licensed to ASML which can be revoked anytime if they sell EUV machines to China or any other US adversary, the restriction which is hurting ASML's bottom line as China is hungry for lithography machines and will pay top dollar for them. ASML got to where it is precisely because of the US assistance: https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/65642319 https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/65642319
- wdb 4y ago
  And Carl Zeiss is probably also using some US invention?
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    Your point?

microtonal 4y ago

Europe can't do computers. This is bad for them, because foreign companies, who can do computers, make money in Europe and beat out the local competition. Not this again. Europe fails on producing unicorn that grow by exploiting people's addictions (Facebook), externalizing cost (Uber, AirBnB). However, Europe does fine in computing. The chips in you cell phone and computer are most likely made with an eUV machine from ASML, it probably has a bunch of NXP chips in it too. Europe has huge business software companies like SAP. Europe also has plenty of unicorns, like Klarna, Spotify, Revolut, Mollie, Just Eat/Takeaway etc. You may not know about all of them, because they operate primarily in Europe, like there are also plenty of US unicorns that barely have any footing in Europe.

digging 4y ago
Americans tend to assume every successful tech company is founded in America. Whenever Ubisoft is in gaming news, there are always Americans surprised to learn they're French.
- pb7 4y ago
  Activision-Blizzard, Epic, Microsoft, Take-Two, Electronic Arts, and Sony (partially) are all American and have 10x the revenue. China and Japan are both ahead of EU as a whole.
  - digging 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - pb7 4y ago
      I disagree, I find it quite relevant that a larger population somehow has less than 1/10th of the market share in products they consume at an equal rate. One large successful company in a massive industry (video games) is nothing to be proud of when you have 450M people -- it is troubling.
      - 4y ago

lm28469 4y ago

The problem that I think a lot of americans don't get is that Europe isn't the US. It's not "money above all" "move fast and break things" "disrupt everything and ignore the law until you're profitable". We do care about privacy, worker's right, &c. and we do understand that allowing foreign, especially american, companies to break things isn't a net benefit for us. Uber abusing their """contractors""" despite the fact that they clearly are employees and should therefore have the same rights as other employees E-mobility companies using public infrastructure (paid by local taxes) while themselves tax evading their profit Airbnb allowing people to transform their regular flats into full time 365/365 hotel rooms despite the housing crisis

ActorNightly 4y ago
>We do care about privacy Nobody in the world actually cares about privacy. All the GDPR stuff did was ruin every website on the internet, most people click accept all, few people click deny because they are paranoid, everyone still uses instagram, facebook, and iphones which constantly broadcast your information to Apple. e.t.c. But at least the politicians get to strut around pretending like they did something. >worker's right No, you guys care about worker equality. Workers right means that if I want to work extra to beat my colleagues for promotion, and forgo having a family, I should be able to. EU laws say, "No, you cannot do this because its unfair to all the people that want to have families and work less". To be clear, worker equality is not a bad thing, since it does guarantee a lot of protection, but on the flip side, it doesn't allow for as much innovation. EU could easily beat US if it allowed the same level of corporate freedom instead of trying to pass labor regulation laws, and focused resources of worker protection on things like unemployment insurance.
- lm28469 4y ago
  > All the GDPR stuff did was ruin every website on the internet, most people click accept all, few people click deny because they are paranoid, everyone still uses instagram, facebook, and iphones which constantly broadcast your information to Apple. e.t.c. But at least the politicians get to strut around pretending like they did something. Then you clearly don't know what GDPR is and how different companies treat data in the US and in Europe. > No, you guys care about worker equality Ok, call it whatever you want, is it mathematically and objectively inferior to your superior American Standards Of Ethics And Morals ? Just follow the damn law, it's really not that hard. Add a pop up, ask for consent, detail what the data is used for, don't collect what you don't need. It really isn't hard, if you american super-geniuses can't do that you should stop flexing your tech capabilities. 90% of what is in GDPR should be standard when handling data, if you can't comply with it you don't care about data privacy in the first place. > EU could easily beat US Beat it at what game ? You're exactly the stereotype I'm talking about, if all that matter is money then you're 100% right. But then again if we talk about social security, paid parental leave, paid vacation, work life balance, &c. it's a whole other story. Feel free to do whatever you want in your country but don't come to other continents and try to force it down out throats > EU laws say, "No, you cannot do this because its unfair to all the people that want to have families and work less". Which law are you referencing ?

thefz 4y ago

This is more or less all wrong. GDPR is not there to make companies pay and keep on committing crime, but rather to make them correct their business to be compliant. Fines are laughably low. Besides, the whole GDPR is in place to protect European citizens from abuse of a fundamental right, which is privacy, from commercial and not commercial actors. If you are willing to give out everything about you for the latest new iToy and not receive a cent, be my guest, nobody is going to stop you in America. But here, we have regulations in place to prevent the overselling and oversharing of customer's own data. Besides, "Europe can't do computers", Linux is a Finnish creation, as an example. You are confusing factories that produce hardware with the software that runs on it.

Woeps 4y ago

1, Europe cannot do hardware very well... on this I agree, software is okay but not close on the scale of US/China (or they start in Europe). 2 3 & 4, Wüt? That's not how these bans work... So could you please elaborate further?