7 ms·

EU urged to protect grassroots AI research or risk losing out to US

95 points by magoghm 3y ago

marginalia_nu 3y ago
I say this being EU-based: If the EU wants a viable tech sector, in AI or otherwise, it needs to offer a business environment that can compete with Silicon Valley both economically and in terms of regulation. As long it's more lucrative to run a business in SV (let alone be employed -), that is where all significant tech will happen, where all research will get implemented, and where most talented people will move. You can fund bleeding edge research all day, it does nothing to get around this economic fact. Any European startup that gets off the ground very much does so despite being based in Europe.
- imjonse 3y ago
  This is about open source and public funded AI, not about startups or tech sector in general.
  - marginalia_nu 3y ago
    It's still pertinent. As the article notes, EU regulation suffocates open source work as well. And in many ways, the reason why so much of this stuff gets run as open source projects in Europe is because running it as a business wouldn't be economically viable.
    - imjonse 3y ago
      Lucky for us, otherwise instead of the free/open source software of the past decades we'd only have open core and similarly crippled offerings only :) More seriously, the motivations behind open source projects and startups are completely different, it's just the end result being software makes them seem interchangeable. Open source software should be a public service and receive public funding ideally like most infrastructure that is essential for civilization.
      - marginalia_nu 3y ago
        In terms of putting food on the table, it doesn't really matter how you run it. If you're accepting donations or charging customers, you still gotta pay your taxes.
  - AlanYx 3y ago
    This article focuses on the impact of the EU AI Act on open source AI work and research, but the act itself applies broadly to all development of AI, public and private.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- xiphias2 3y ago
  As long as the whole EU population is anti-business (people put their money into bonds instead of stocks unlike in US), politicians have the incentive to go for the anti-business route even if it has no chance of competing with US.
- skrebbel 3y ago
  I run a EU-based startup. We’re not a good counterexample because we’re not super huge, but at the same time I don’t know what you’re on about. We sell globally. Notably, we can reach customers in the US easily - as easily as anywhere else really. What roadblocks am I supposed to be experiencing that wouldn’t be there in the US? EDIT: I'm not saying there's no reason there's no Google-size tech businesses in Europe. There is, or there would be. GP's tone suggests (to me) that European governments can make some easy (ish) fixes to remove roadblocks for startups. I just do not believe that the key problems with the European business climate (culture, ambition, VC-funding) are things governments can easily fix. Eg my government (NL) tries to fix VC funding by running a bunch of government-funded VC funds and tbh it's a bit of a mixed bag. They're not bad investors to have but I doubt any Google-sized venture is gonna come out of those any time soon.
  - pipes 3y ago
    As far as I understand, tech salaries are much smaller in the EU and the UK and there's way less venture capital. Also we don't seem to be leading in tech in any way compared to SV. I guess that is what he means. (I live in the UK and can only dream about USA level salaries).
    - skrebbel 3y ago
      Yeah but how is lower tech salaries bad for the startup? It just makes it easier to compete on compensation, right? I agree with the available VC money, it’s a big difference. But I don’t see how governments are supposed to fix that.
      - f6v 3y ago
        > Yeah but how is lower tech salaries bad for the startup? The cream of the crop goes to US. There’re some other obvious disadvantages the EU has for the talent looking to immigrate, like having to learn a local language if you want to be part of the society.
        3y ago
- personomas 3y ago
  That's more than anything because of: corporate taxation and bureaucracy. It's out of control here in Europe. Business don't have a fair chance against US businesses.
- kmfrk 3y ago
  One of the great things about being European is that we will constantly see some random city promoted as "the Silicon Valley of Europe", and the city seems to change once every three or five years.
  - bboozzoo 3y ago
    What's the last one?
    - kmfrk 3y ago
      I stopped reading the articles, but the last one I can recall was Barcelona I think. Just some random search engine hits since I don't exactly bookmark the articles: https://www.inc.com/bryan-adams/this-unsuspecting-european-city-could-become-silicon-valleys-biggest-rival.html https://www.inc.com/bryan-adams/this-unsuspecting-european-c... https://www.barcelonacatalonia.eu/en/microsoft-stresses-that-barcelona-could-be-the-silicon-valley-of-europe-in-10-years-time/ https://www.barcelonacatalonia.eu/en/microsoft-stresses-that... https://thenextweb.com/news/barcelona-not-next-silicon-valley https://thenextweb.com/news/barcelona-not-next-silicon-valle...
  - midoridensha 3y ago
    That's not unique to Europe; the USA has done this countless times in the last 20+ years, mainly on the east coast. Some city or region will proclaim themselves "the next Silicon Valley", and of course it doesn't happen. NYC tried it once, calling themselves "Silicon Alley". Much of the USA is jealous of Silicon Valley's success, and they try to make themselves the next SV without actually learning why SV became successful in the first place and emulating that. So, for instance, one big reason SV has continued to be successful is the fact that non-compete agreements are unenforceable in the state of California. A SV tech employee can easily leave their job and go to work down the street for a competing company. This isn't true in most other states, and noncompete employment clauses can be common.
- mlinksva 3y ago
  Unfortunately the "business environment" is a bunch of things with a lot of path dependency and clustering, even in terms of regulation it's most helpful to have (even by coincidence) made what turned out to be important choices decades ago. I recommend "How Law Made Silicon Valley" https://scholarlycommons.law.emory.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1211&context=elj https://scholarlycommons.law.emory.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?a... which contrasts with EU and Japan. Still, no time like the present to start getting to a better place.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- lossolo 3y ago
  It's all about amount of available VC money to burn and a culture of risk taking, which we both lack in EU, regulation has nothing to do with that.
- WhereIsTheTruth 3y ago
  > it needs to offer a business environment that can compete with Silicon Valley That means becoming the USA, wich I don't think Europeans want that And to be honest with you, I don't think Silicon Valley is a thing anymore, the real competition is East, in Asia, nobody plays with hardware and robotics in the west, and that's a big problem, education is missing in the equation, AI isn't just about chat bots Asia doesn't even compete with Silicon Valley.. The idea that EU should compete with the US is outdated and doesn't work, as a result, both the US and the EU are missing the big rendez-vous that's gonna shape the 22th century, the goal goes beyond creating a "business environment", it's about shaping a new civilization that moves forward, rather than stagnate for a whole century, look at the political climate over here, it's not looking good.. EDIT: Just today: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-05-04/peter-thiel-says-moving-to-florida-from-silicon-valley-is-too-expensive https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-05-04/peter-thi...
- gumballindie 3y ago
  Probably the most relevant example of why the eu will continue lagging is that openai was founded by americans and east europeans as was google. That’s a total no go in europe, particularly in germany. The eu can regulate itself all it wants but until it learns how to actually collaborate it wont get far. You cant thrive with a mindset stuck in the wrong era. And that applies to almost everything europeans do.
- laurencerowe 3y ago
  I suspect the biggest difference is simply the size of the US market. While the EU has done a huge amount to reduce barriers to trade between member countries, they will perhaps always be far more culturally and linguistically distinct. That makes it far more difficult to scale companies up.
Proven 3y ago
[dead]
rhyme-boss 3y ago
Make it easier to immigrate. Make housing affordable. I'm sure many talented young people would rather live in the EU than the US.
- hospitalJail 3y ago
  Probably not if you have the skills to write cutting edge AI. I think lots of young people would rather live there, but when you have a high value skill, things like 'affordable housing' aren't a big deal when you make 250k/yr vs 90k.
  - malermeister 3y ago
    They are tho. I made north of half a million a year in the US and am still moving back to the EU. It's not just about how much I make, that reaches diminishing returns relatively quickly. It also matters how well other people, not in tech live. I got tired of all the homelessness around me caused by low wages and high rents. I got tired of all the drug abuse that happens as a result of that hopeless situation. I got tired of all the crime that follows. I want to go back to a society that works, not just a dystopian hell scape where I can be rich.
    - endisneigh 3y ago
      you're only doing this after you made your money in the USA and will presumably be far richer than your neighbors back in the EU.
      - midoridensha 3y ago
        His savings will be higher, sure (though living in SF is horribly expensive so he might not have as much as you think). However, his income in the EU will be the same as his peers there, and he'll need to live within that new income. Having a lifestyle that costs more per-month than your income is stupid and unsustainable; it's unlikely he has that much money saved to live that way for the rest of his life. So, at best, he'll have a bunch of cash to pay for a nicer place to live if he decides to purchase something (and if so, he'll still have to pay higher taxes and living costs out of his current income). Basically, he has a really nice retirement savings now. He's probably not going to be living like a king.
hospitalJail 3y ago
Its cool to see there was only a passing mention of rules/regulations in the article and most focus on Open Source work. I can get behind a government who funds open source software, hard to imagine a better ROI. Speaking of which, can we get funding for FreeCAD? Outside of AI, having CAD software that doesnt change pricing every year has been monumental for me being able to start a design engineering business. I didn't have 10k to spend on a 2-3 year development cycle as a little guy, not to mention the value it would provide medium and large players to not be under Dassault's boot.
adventured 3y ago
I noticed similar discussions about the Web and mobile (iPhone era), as Europe fell behind the US lead in those sectors. As well as space (particularly with regards to SpaceX lapping everybody; the EU thinking it can discuss its way to creating a Starlink competitor most recently). The take a decade to discuss what to do approach isn't going to cut it with how exceptionally fast AI is now moving. Europe is already losing badly. It'll take a gigantic move - and fast - to catch up.
- chewz 3y ago
  If/when EU starts considering some move it is usually already too late and there are mostly half measures proposed anyway. You can't decree inovation in central planning economy that EU is at heart..
Max_Limelihood 3y ago
Never have I seen a title so perfectly encapsulate the very problem it's trying to solve. If you keep trying to "protect" your research from any kind of competition, you're doomed from the start.

95 points by magoghm 3y ago

I say this being EU-based: If the EU wants a viable tech sector, in AI or otherwise, it needs to offer a business environment that can compete with Silicon Valley both economically and in terms of regulation. As long it's more lucrative to run a business in SV (let alone be employed -), that is where all significant tech will happen, where all research will get implemented, and where most talented people will move. You can fund bleeding edge research all day, it does nothing to get around this economic fact. Any European startup that gets off the ground very much does so despite being based in Europe.

imjonse 3y ago
This is about open source and public funded AI, not about startups or tech sector in general.
- marginalia_nu 3y ago
  It's still pertinent. As the article notes, EU regulation suffocates open source work as well. And in many ways, the reason why so much of this stuff gets run as open source projects in Europe is because running it as a business wouldn't be economically viable.
  - imjonse 3y ago
    Lucky for us, otherwise instead of the free/open source software of the past decades we'd only have open core and similarly crippled offerings only :) More seriously, the motivations behind open source projects and startups are completely different, it's just the end result being software makes them seem interchangeable. Open source software should be a public service and receive public funding ideally like most infrastructure that is essential for civilization.
    - marginalia_nu 3y ago
      In terms of putting food on the table, it doesn't really matter how you run it. If you're accepting donations or charging customers, you still gotta pay your taxes.
- AlanYx 3y ago
  This article focuses on the impact of the EU AI Act on open source AI work and research, but the act itself applies broadly to all development of AI, public and private.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
xiphias2 3y ago
As long as the whole EU population is anti-business (people put their money into bonds instead of stocks unlike in US), politicians have the incentive to go for the anti-business route even if it has no chance of competing with US.
skrebbel 3y ago
I run a EU-based startup. We’re not a good counterexample because we’re not super huge, but at the same time I don’t know what you’re on about. We sell globally. Notably, we can reach customers in the US easily - as easily as anywhere else really. What roadblocks am I supposed to be experiencing that wouldn’t be there in the US? EDIT: I'm not saying there's no reason there's no Google-size tech businesses in Europe. There is, or there would be. GP's tone suggests (to me) that European governments can make some easy (ish) fixes to remove roadblocks for startups. I just do not believe that the key problems with the European business climate (culture, ambition, VC-funding) are things governments can easily fix. Eg my government (NL) tries to fix VC funding by running a bunch of government-funded VC funds and tbh it's a bit of a mixed bag. They're not bad investors to have but I doubt any Google-sized venture is gonna come out of those any time soon.
- pipes 3y ago
  As far as I understand, tech salaries are much smaller in the EU and the UK and there's way less venture capital. Also we don't seem to be leading in tech in any way compared to SV. I guess that is what he means. (I live in the UK and can only dream about USA level salaries).
  - skrebbel 3y ago
    Yeah but how is lower tech salaries bad for the startup? It just makes it easier to compete on compensation, right? I agree with the available VC money, it’s a big difference. But I don’t see how governments are supposed to fix that.
    - f6v 3y ago
      > Yeah but how is lower tech salaries bad for the startup? The cream of the crop goes to US. There’re some other obvious disadvantages the EU has for the talent looking to immigrate, like having to learn a local language if you want to be part of the society.
      - 3y ago
personomas 3y ago
That's more than anything because of: corporate taxation and bureaucracy. It's out of control here in Europe. Business don't have a fair chance against US businesses.
kmfrk 3y ago
One of the great things about being European is that we will constantly see some random city promoted as "the Silicon Valley of Europe", and the city seems to change once every three or five years.
- bboozzoo 3y ago
  What's the last one?
  - kmfrk 3y ago
    I stopped reading the articles, but the last one I can recall was Barcelona I think. Just some random search engine hits since I don't exactly bookmark the articles: https://www.inc.com/bryan-adams/this-unsuspecting-european-city-could-become-silicon-valleys-biggest-rival.html https://www.inc.com/bryan-adams/this-unsuspecting-european-c... https://www.barcelonacatalonia.eu/en/microsoft-stresses-that-barcelona-could-be-the-silicon-valley-of-europe-in-10-years-time/ https://www.barcelonacatalonia.eu/en/microsoft-stresses-that... https://thenextweb.com/news/barcelona-not-next-silicon-valley https://thenextweb.com/news/barcelona-not-next-silicon-valle...
- midoridensha 3y ago
  That's not unique to Europe; the USA has done this countless times in the last 20+ years, mainly on the east coast. Some city or region will proclaim themselves "the next Silicon Valley", and of course it doesn't happen. NYC tried it once, calling themselves "Silicon Alley". Much of the USA is jealous of Silicon Valley's success, and they try to make themselves the next SV without actually learning why SV became successful in the first place and emulating that. So, for instance, one big reason SV has continued to be successful is the fact that non-compete agreements are unenforceable in the state of California. A SV tech employee can easily leave their job and go to work down the street for a competing company. This isn't true in most other states, and noncompete employment clauses can be common.
mlinksva 3y ago
Unfortunately the "business environment" is a bunch of things with a lot of path dependency and clustering, even in terms of regulation it's most helpful to have (even by coincidence) made what turned out to be important choices decades ago. I recommend "How Law Made Silicon Valley" https://scholarlycommons.law.emory.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1211&context=elj https://scholarlycommons.law.emory.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?a... which contrasts with EU and Japan. Still, no time like the present to start getting to a better place.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
lossolo 3y ago
It's all about amount of available VC money to burn and a culture of risk taking, which we both lack in EU, regulation has nothing to do with that.
WhereIsTheTruth 3y ago
> it needs to offer a business environment that can compete with Silicon Valley That means becoming the USA, wich I don't think Europeans want that And to be honest with you, I don't think Silicon Valley is a thing anymore, the real competition is East, in Asia, nobody plays with hardware and robotics in the west, and that's a big problem, education is missing in the equation, AI isn't just about chat bots Asia doesn't even compete with Silicon Valley.. The idea that EU should compete with the US is outdated and doesn't work, as a result, both the US and the EU are missing the big rendez-vous that's gonna shape the 22th century, the goal goes beyond creating a "business environment", it's about shaping a new civilization that moves forward, rather than stagnate for a whole century, look at the political climate over here, it's not looking good.. EDIT: Just today: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-05-04/peter-thiel-says-moving-to-florida-from-silicon-valley-is-too-expensive https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-05-04/peter-thi...
gumballindie 3y ago
Probably the most relevant example of why the eu will continue lagging is that openai was founded by americans and east europeans as was google. That’s a total no go in europe, particularly in germany. The eu can regulate itself all it wants but until it learns how to actually collaborate it wont get far. You cant thrive with a mindset stuck in the wrong era. And that applies to almost everything europeans do.
laurencerowe 3y ago
I suspect the biggest difference is simply the size of the US market. While the EU has done a huge amount to reduce barriers to trade between member countries, they will perhaps always be far more culturally and linguistically distinct. That makes it far more difficult to scale companies up.

Proven 3y ago

[dead]

rhyme-boss 3y ago

Make it easier to immigrate. Make housing affordable. I'm sure many talented young people would rather live in the EU than the US.

hospitalJail 3y ago
Probably not if you have the skills to write cutting edge AI. I think lots of young people would rather live there, but when you have a high value skill, things like 'affordable housing' aren't a big deal when you make 250k/yr vs 90k.
- malermeister 3y ago
  They are tho. I made north of half a million a year in the US and am still moving back to the EU. It's not just about how much I make, that reaches diminishing returns relatively quickly. It also matters how well other people, not in tech live. I got tired of all the homelessness around me caused by low wages and high rents. I got tired of all the drug abuse that happens as a result of that hopeless situation. I got tired of all the crime that follows. I want to go back to a society that works, not just a dystopian hell scape where I can be rich.
  - endisneigh 3y ago
    you're only doing this after you made your money in the USA and will presumably be far richer than your neighbors back in the EU.
    - midoridensha 3y ago
      His savings will be higher, sure (though living in SF is horribly expensive so he might not have as much as you think). However, his income in the EU will be the same as his peers there, and he'll need to live within that new income. Having a lifestyle that costs more per-month than your income is stupid and unsustainable; it's unlikely he has that much money saved to live that way for the rest of his life. So, at best, he'll have a bunch of cash to pay for a nicer place to live if he decides to purchase something (and if so, he'll still have to pay higher taxes and living costs out of his current income). Basically, he has a really nice retirement savings now. He's probably not going to be living like a king.

hospitalJail 3y ago

Its cool to see there was only a passing mention of rules/regulations in the article and most focus on Open Source work. I can get behind a government who funds open source software, hard to imagine a better ROI. Speaking of which, can we get funding for FreeCAD? Outside of AI, having CAD software that doesnt change pricing every year has been monumental for me being able to start a design engineering business. I didn't have 10k to spend on a 2-3 year development cycle as a little guy, not to mention the value it would provide medium and large players to not be under Dassault's boot.

adventured 3y ago

I noticed similar discussions about the Web and mobile (iPhone era), as Europe fell behind the US lead in those sectors. As well as space (particularly with regards to SpaceX lapping everybody; the EU thinking it can discuss its way to creating a Starlink competitor most recently). The take a decade to discuss what to do approach isn't going to cut it with how exceptionally fast AI is now moving. Europe is already losing badly. It'll take a gigantic move - and fast - to catch up.

chewz 3y ago
If/when EU starts considering some move it is usually already too late and there are mostly half measures proposed anyway. You can't decree inovation in central planning economy that EU is at heart..

Max_Limelihood 3y ago

Never have I seen a title so perfectly encapsulate the very problem it's trying to solve. If you keep trying to "protect" your research from any kind of competition, you're doomed from the start.