7 ms·

Buy European: EU Commissions New Apply AI Strategy Launched

42 points by jamesblonde 1y ago

schnitzelstoat 1y ago
Another strategy, another initiative, another commission. > All of this AI acceleration will be monitored by an “AI Observatory” and discussed in an “Apply AI Alliance” – a refashioning of the existing AI Alliance, a stakeholder talking shop. It reminds me of how here in Spain the Government already created the Agencia Española de Supervisión de la Inteligencia Artificial (Spanish AI Supervision Agency) when we barely have an AI industry to supervise. It creates some more cushy jobs for them to hand out though.
- poszlem 1y ago
  “Bureaucracy is the art of making the possible impossible.”
  - lnsru 1y ago
    Exactly this happened to European hardware startups. So many certifications and directives, weee, rohs, reach, red, supply chain, sustainability, etc. Logical step as an investor is to avoid ventures, that are burning tons of money just to comply with regulations. The company I work for right now has healthy cashflow and people for regulatory topics, but it would be impossible to re-create this electronics business today.
    - Printerisreal 1y ago
      Sadly this + unsustainable love for social welfare will lead Europe to lose long term life quality and possible wealth. They don't like innovators there now, that is for sure.
    - Xelbair 1y ago
      Even if you get EU grant, you can't run a startup that way. You have to basically have full plan set in stone, and you will be checked if it was fulfilled to avoid waste of EU money. The problem is that you cannot pivot easily, you cannot change a lot of things in it - and even things like your potential hire bailing last minute can be devastating, paperwork wise.
- naldb 1y ago
  In Spain there are half a million more people living off the government than those working in the private sector: https://theobjective.com/economia/macroeconomia/2024-09-16/ayudas-sueldos-publicos-nominas-privado/?amp https://theobjective.com/economia/macroeconomia/2024-09-16/a...
  - ashwoods 1y ago
    I think this comment is, while factual, slightly misleading. Only around 16% of people "living off the government" are public servants, from which over 50% are for essential services like education health or public safety. Over 50% of those "living off the government" are pensioners, so mostly coming from a pool of people who already worked (and most of them in the private sector), and paid their share in taxes. In spain, the private sector makes 70% of the active workforce, while the public sector around 13%, self employed 13%, and unemployed 10%. I know Spain (and Europe) have quite a lot of structural problems, but I fail to see how having so many pensioners has anything to do with AI regulations.
    - graemep 1y ago
      If pensions come from government funds it matters if you are looking at the impact on the economy. The taxes pensioners paid have presumably been spent, so while their past contribution is an argument for their entitlement to pensions, it does not solve the problem of where the money will come from. Its even worse in the UK where we have a special additional income tax (NI) on earned income (things like investment income are exempt), that is higher on people with low to moderate incomes, that is primarily used to pay (current) pensions (a little bit is set aside for future pensions, but there is only enough set aside for less an an year of payments).
      - Epa095 1y ago
        It does not really make a big difference if the pensioner saved 100k while working and put it in their couch, or if they payed it in ekstra taxes which got saved by the government, or if the government presses new money. The important part is how large fraction of the population work, not where the money for the remaining fraction comes from. Money is only a representation of value, value created by the working fraction.
flanked-evergl 1y ago
Everything in EU is overpriced and worse than things coming from outside the EU, and that is by design. EU basically has no choice but to become more dystopian and adopt policies similar to the USSR to keep itself viable. This includes extreme trade barriers (with exceptions for China, because of course) and extreme restrictions on speech. Europe is like some rich kid who thinks he somehow has merit of his own, instead of just being well-off because his parents were well-off. Basically Europe is the Greta Thunberg of continents.
- schnitzelstoat 1y ago
  > This includes extreme trade barriers (with exceptions for China, because of course) We have high tariffs with China as well though. I wish we didn't, then I might actually be able to afford an electric car.
  - shevy-java 1y ago
    It is a bit hypocritical of the EU to push tariffs against the EU citizens, forcing higher prices. Tariffs can sometimes make sense, such as for an emerging industry, but counter-tariffs are often the outcome and we here are punished by higher prices. If the EU wants to be relevant, they also need to produce at a lower price; China is conquering markets because it simply is more competitive now.
    - flanked-evergl 1y ago
      China has better quality manufacturing at a cheaper price than EU and China. They aren't pushing out junk, it's well engineered, well, manufactured good which are almost impossible to produce at all in Europe never mind produce at a cheaper price, but still Europe allows these things to be imported with less strict barriers than they have against goods produced in European countries themselves.
  - flanked-evergl 1y ago
    On paper the EU may have strong trade barriers with China, but in practice this just does not bear out. Europe has stronger trade barriers within itself than with China. The EU demands that goods made in Poland conforms to some standards, but also that the manufacturers in Poland conform to some standards. For goods from China they in theory demand the same standards, but in practice these standards are not strictly enforced for goods from China (see AliExpress, Temu, Shein, etc), and there are no regulation on the manufacturers. Chinese manufacturers use slave labour, they pollute, they don't give their employees similar rights and benefits. It's also way easier and cheaper for most Europeans to buy something from China than it is to buy something from within Europe, even though the actual selling price out of the factory is not that much higher for things manufactured in Europe. I pay the same "tariffs" if I buy from Sweden or AliExpress.
devjab 1y ago
Regardless of how you view the current political climate in USA, it's simply become a major risk-management factor for almost any European organisation. We're heavily invested into Azure, but we've had to work out plans on how we could potentially exit within 30 days because we're part of the European energy sector. (We're really part of the global energy sector, but we're based in the EU.) We still view US tech companies as more reliable and secure than a lot of other non-EU places, but it's not like it was 5 years ago. I'm not sure any of us are really happy with this. Mistral is fine, but it's not as good as Claude and similar. It is what it is though. Ironically there are no current exit strategies for our public sector mobile apps which rely solely on Google play or the Apple store. I've written a plan for how we can move our resources from Azure to Hetzner, luckily I'm not involved with how we would move any 365 products so it was not too bad. Only the plan involves me using our digital national ID app on my phone, which would not work if I wasn't running android with Google Play (or apple). I mean, in the extreme it wouldn't be impossible to use my passport in person, but still.
- shevy-java 1y ago
  That is also true. Relying on the USA past this point is a losing strategy.
- CalRobert 1y ago
  How do people who don't have a smartphone (they still exist!) manage without digital ID? Is there no analog fallback?
  - stefanfisk 1y ago
    In Sweden you can technically get by with only a psychical ID. But even now when the number of people that only have a physical ID is low getting things done can be hard. Suddenly switching to physical ID only on asocialt wide basis would be comparable to going from almost exclusively shopping online to in-store cash only.
    - johnofthesea 1y ago
lifestyleguru 1y ago
Everyone is selling the shovels but there is no gold. It's a shovel gold rush.
simianwords 1y ago
While some regulation is nice and needed it is kind of sad to see EU just rent-seeking on top of the AI innovation cycle.
shevy-java 1y ago
My problem with the EU overall, aside from being inefficient, is that they don't really push towards intrinsic perfection. They kind of look what others do, try to simulate and copy it, usually fail - and then the same pattern is repeated. Just take the issue of a european chip industry. Or literally anything China is doing now. The EU just isn't really a driver - it is a maintainer at best. And that also means it will successfully lose out to e. g. China or the USA.
- sofixa 1y ago
  > My problem with the EU overall, aside from being inefficient, is that they don't really push towards intrinsic perfection. They kind of look what others do, try to simulate and copy it, usually fail - and then the same pattern is repeated There is literally a term for when EU mandates result in global change, "the Brussels effect". Also, it's a bit weird to claim the EU never tries to push for perfection and just copies - this is the organisation that brought us USB C as the one and only standard for everything, the right to be forgotten and the right to digital privacy, competition on railway networks EU-wide, the OpenSkies, and is actively trying to prevent excessive concentration of market forces (unlike pretty much any other regulator).
  - graemep 1y ago
    > Also, it's a bit weird to claim the EU never tries to push for perfection and just copies - this is the organisation that brought us USB C as the one and only standard for everything Not the same as inventing USB, and I am far from sure its a good thing. > he right to be forgotten and the right to digital privacy Right to privacy in various forms far predates the EU. > competition on railway networks EU-wide A copy of a policy of a country that has left the EU, and is far from popular there, and looks like being reversed there. > actively trying to prevent excessive concentration of market forces (unlike pretty much any other regulator). The US was very good at that historically, and there are plenty of regulators around the world with the same concerns.
    - sofixa 1y ago
mrtksn 1y ago
I got a feeling that there's a bunch of European politicians having a FOMO and are way too influenced by AI influencers that post stuff like "It's over", "Bye Bye Hollywood", "17 hours ago OpenAI launched it and this changes everything". I recall bunch of those also having a FOMO for NFTs and having NFT events in the commission premises. Probably its O.K. as long as they don't spend consequential money on this stuff. They should just watch the US more closely, keep announcing 600B Euros investment every few weeks and do nothing about it. Make VW invest 5B Euros for AI self driving in Mistral then Mistral buying shares from VW with that money, do some questionable self driving demos etc. Eurocrats are clueless, they are trying to have something that very small number of people show interest in. What they should really do, IMHO, is to reduce friction induced by bureaucracy and that's it. Contrary to the popular narrative EU is a force for reducing bureaucracy, as the Brits found out when left EU. The idea is that EU coordinates the 27 states to create ruleset that are more or less aligned so there's not too much paperwork when trading between those 27 countries. Unfortunately this is still not good enough and they are working to create the 28th regime which is supposed to be something like streamlined ruleset that bypasses the local ones so that companies can grow in a market of 27 countries without dealing with 27 set of laws. That's when EU can have an actual AI thing because the current state of AI is just bunch of capitalists juggling money and credit among themselves to keep alive this interesting technology that looks promising but doesn't actually accomplish something yet. If EU will have anything of this sort they need a place to hold these capital gymnastics. This particular "Apply AI" strategy seems to stem from the idea that AI does some great things and EU industry should adopt it to increase productivity and not fall behind. Pure FOMO, considering that studies show very limited gains through use of AI so far.
- lifestyleguru 1y ago
  > Eurocrats are clueless Stop hurting yourself by thinking like this. They are extremely smart and capable, only not working in your favour.
jamesblonde 1y ago
I work with Hopsworks. I think we are the only European owned software platform for developing and running AI systems (batch, real-time, LLMS/agents) at scale.
- olivermuty 1y ago
  Scaleway, ovh and a bunch of other inference as a service providers dont count?
  - jamesblonde 1y ago
    software platform - for training, feature engineering, inference. By that measure, they don't count. They are cloud providers. There are european inference as a service providers, too, though.
carlosjobim 1y ago
Glad to see that the EU's Tech Commissioner is one of the world's leading experts in the field of AI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henna_Virkkunen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henna_Virkkunen
CalRobert 1y ago
Ever since GDPR it has been baffling that European companies just reach for the American hyperscalers without a care in the world. Sure, _some_ companies need it, but you can get a long ways with OVH or Hetzner. I suspect many of them are just ignoring their obligations with respect to data transfers (they also fail to understand the meaning of "Freely Given Consent" or "Legitimate Interest"), and utterly pathetic and useless institutions like the Irish Data Protection Commission (https://www.dataprotection.ie/en https://www.dataprotection.ie/en) just... let them.
arhamakhtar352 1y ago
Interesting that the EU wants to push “Buy European AI,” but without clear implementation steps it feels more like strategy theater. I wonder how many of these initiatives will actually help small developers or startups build sustainable AI tools.
- jamesblonde 1y ago
  Or existing AI vendors build market share. Of course, it will help us. But it needs a lot of money. And the consultancy companies have been feeding from the product trough here for years. We need to keep their noses out of it.
jamesblonde 1y ago
Mods have woken up. First job - downgrade any pro European tech stories. Done.
hulitu 1y ago
> Buy European Computers: China, Taiwan Food: splitted between EU 60% China 30% and US 10% (personal experience, YMMV). Clothes: 95% S-E Asia, including China Tools: Eastern EU Energy: US, Russia /s

42 points by jamesblonde 1y ago

Another strategy, another initiative, another commission. > All of this AI acceleration will be monitored by an “AI Observatory” and discussed in an “Apply AI Alliance” – a refashioning of the existing AI Alliance, a stakeholder talking shop. It reminds me of how here in Spain the Government already created the Agencia Española de Supervisión de la Inteligencia Artificial (Spanish AI Supervision Agency) when we barely have an AI industry to supervise. It creates some more cushy jobs for them to hand out though.

poszlem 1y ago
“Bureaucracy is the art of making the possible impossible.”
- lnsru 1y ago
  Exactly this happened to European hardware startups. So many certifications and directives, weee, rohs, reach, red, supply chain, sustainability, etc. Logical step as an investor is to avoid ventures, that are burning tons of money just to comply with regulations. The company I work for right now has healthy cashflow and people for regulatory topics, but it would be impossible to re-create this electronics business today.
  - Printerisreal 1y ago
    Sadly this + unsustainable love for social welfare will lead Europe to lose long term life quality and possible wealth. They don't like innovators there now, that is for sure.
  - Xelbair 1y ago
    Even if you get EU grant, you can't run a startup that way. You have to basically have full plan set in stone, and you will be checked if it was fulfilled to avoid waste of EU money. The problem is that you cannot pivot easily, you cannot change a lot of things in it - and even things like your potential hire bailing last minute can be devastating, paperwork wise.
naldb 1y ago
In Spain there are half a million more people living off the government than those working in the private sector: https://theobjective.com/economia/macroeconomia/2024-09-16/ayudas-sueldos-publicos-nominas-privado/?amp https://theobjective.com/economia/macroeconomia/2024-09-16/a...
- ashwoods 1y ago
  I think this comment is, while factual, slightly misleading. Only around 16% of people "living off the government" are public servants, from which over 50% are for essential services like education health or public safety. Over 50% of those "living off the government" are pensioners, so mostly coming from a pool of people who already worked (and most of them in the private sector), and paid their share in taxes. In spain, the private sector makes 70% of the active workforce, while the public sector around 13%, self employed 13%, and unemployed 10%. I know Spain (and Europe) have quite a lot of structural problems, but I fail to see how having so many pensioners has anything to do with AI regulations.
  - graemep 1y ago
    If pensions come from government funds it matters if you are looking at the impact on the economy. The taxes pensioners paid have presumably been spent, so while their past contribution is an argument for their entitlement to pensions, it does not solve the problem of where the money will come from. Its even worse in the UK where we have a special additional income tax (NI) on earned income (things like investment income are exempt), that is higher on people with low to moderate incomes, that is primarily used to pay (current) pensions (a little bit is set aside for future pensions, but there is only enough set aside for less an an year of payments).
    - Epa095 1y ago
      It does not really make a big difference if the pensioner saved 100k while working and put it in their couch, or if they payed it in ekstra taxes which got saved by the government, or if the government presses new money. The important part is how large fraction of the population work, not where the money for the remaining fraction comes from. Money is only a representation of value, value created by the working fraction.

flanked-evergl 1y ago

Everything in EU is overpriced and worse than things coming from outside the EU, and that is by design. EU basically has no choice but to become more dystopian and adopt policies similar to the USSR to keep itself viable. This includes extreme trade barriers (with exceptions for China, because of course) and extreme restrictions on speech. Europe is like some rich kid who thinks he somehow has merit of his own, instead of just being well-off because his parents were well-off. Basically Europe is the Greta Thunberg of continents.

schnitzelstoat 1y ago
> This includes extreme trade barriers (with exceptions for China, because of course) We have high tariffs with China as well though. I wish we didn't, then I might actually be able to afford an electric car.
- shevy-java 1y ago
  It is a bit hypocritical of the EU to push tariffs against the EU citizens, forcing higher prices. Tariffs can sometimes make sense, such as for an emerging industry, but counter-tariffs are often the outcome and we here are punished by higher prices. If the EU wants to be relevant, they also need to produce at a lower price; China is conquering markets because it simply is more competitive now.
  - flanked-evergl 1y ago
    China has better quality manufacturing at a cheaper price than EU and China. They aren't pushing out junk, it's well engineered, well, manufactured good which are almost impossible to produce at all in Europe never mind produce at a cheaper price, but still Europe allows these things to be imported with less strict barriers than they have against goods produced in European countries themselves.
- flanked-evergl 1y ago
  On paper the EU may have strong trade barriers with China, but in practice this just does not bear out. Europe has stronger trade barriers within itself than with China. The EU demands that goods made in Poland conforms to some standards, but also that the manufacturers in Poland conform to some standards. For goods from China they in theory demand the same standards, but in practice these standards are not strictly enforced for goods from China (see AliExpress, Temu, Shein, etc), and there are no regulation on the manufacturers. Chinese manufacturers use slave labour, they pollute, they don't give their employees similar rights and benefits. It's also way easier and cheaper for most Europeans to buy something from China than it is to buy something from within Europe, even though the actual selling price out of the factory is not that much higher for things manufactured in Europe. I pay the same "tariffs" if I buy from Sweden or AliExpress.

devjab 1y ago

Regardless of how you view the current political climate in USA, it's simply become a major risk-management factor for almost any European organisation. We're heavily invested into Azure, but we've had to work out plans on how we could potentially exit within 30 days because we're part of the European energy sector. (We're really part of the global energy sector, but we're based in the EU.) We still view US tech companies as more reliable and secure than a lot of other non-EU places, but it's not like it was 5 years ago. I'm not sure any of us are really happy with this. Mistral is fine, but it's not as good as Claude and similar. It is what it is though. Ironically there are no current exit strategies for our public sector mobile apps which rely solely on Google play or the Apple store. I've written a plan for how we can move our resources from Azure to Hetzner, luckily I'm not involved with how we would move any 365 products so it was not too bad. Only the plan involves me using our digital national ID app on my phone, which would not work if I wasn't running android with Google Play (or apple). I mean, in the extreme it wouldn't be impossible to use my passport in person, but still.

shevy-java 1y ago
That is also true. Relying on the USA past this point is a losing strategy.
CalRobert 1y ago
How do people who don't have a smartphone (they still exist!) manage without digital ID? Is there no analog fallback?
- stefanfisk 1y ago
  In Sweden you can technically get by with only a psychical ID. But even now when the number of people that only have a physical ID is low getting things done can be hard. Suddenly switching to physical ID only on asocialt wide basis would be comparable to going from almost exclusively shopping online to in-store cash only.
  - johnofthesea 1y ago

lifestyleguru 1y ago

Everyone is selling the shovels but there is no gold. It's a shovel gold rush.

simianwords 1y ago

While some regulation is nice and needed it is kind of sad to see EU just rent-seeking on top of the AI innovation cycle.

shevy-java 1y ago

My problem with the EU overall, aside from being inefficient, is that they don't really push towards intrinsic perfection. They kind of look what others do, try to simulate and copy it, usually fail - and then the same pattern is repeated. Just take the issue of a european chip industry. Or literally anything China is doing now. The EU just isn't really a driver - it is a maintainer at best. And that also means it will successfully lose out to e. g. China or the USA.

sofixa 1y ago
> My problem with the EU overall, aside from being inefficient, is that they don't really push towards intrinsic perfection. They kind of look what others do, try to simulate and copy it, usually fail - and then the same pattern is repeated There is literally a term for when EU mandates result in global change, "the Brussels effect". Also, it's a bit weird to claim the EU never tries to push for perfection and just copies - this is the organisation that brought us USB C as the one and only standard for everything, the right to be forgotten and the right to digital privacy, competition on railway networks EU-wide, the OpenSkies, and is actively trying to prevent excessive concentration of market forces (unlike pretty much any other regulator).
- graemep 1y ago
  > Also, it's a bit weird to claim the EU never tries to push for perfection and just copies - this is the organisation that brought us USB C as the one and only standard for everything Not the same as inventing USB, and I am far from sure its a good thing. > he right to be forgotten and the right to digital privacy Right to privacy in various forms far predates the EU. > competition on railway networks EU-wide A copy of a policy of a country that has left the EU, and is far from popular there, and looks like being reversed there. > actively trying to prevent excessive concentration of market forces (unlike pretty much any other regulator). The US was very good at that historically, and there are plenty of regulators around the world with the same concerns.
  - sofixa 1y ago

mrtksn 1y ago

I got a feeling that there's a bunch of European politicians having a FOMO and are way too influenced by AI influencers that post stuff like "It's over", "Bye Bye Hollywood", "17 hours ago OpenAI launched it and this changes everything". I recall bunch of those also having a FOMO for NFTs and having NFT events in the commission premises. Probably its O.K. as long as they don't spend consequential money on this stuff. They should just watch the US more closely, keep announcing 600B Euros investment every few weeks and do nothing about it. Make VW invest 5B Euros for AI self driving in Mistral then Mistral buying shares from VW with that money, do some questionable self driving demos etc. Eurocrats are clueless, they are trying to have something that very small number of people show interest in. What they should really do, IMHO, is to reduce friction induced by bureaucracy and that's it. Contrary to the popular narrative EU is a force for reducing bureaucracy, as the Brits found out when left EU. The idea is that EU coordinates the 27 states to create ruleset that are more or less aligned so there's not too much paperwork when trading between those 27 countries. Unfortunately this is still not good enough and they are working to create the 28th regime which is supposed to be something like streamlined ruleset that bypasses the local ones so that companies can grow in a market of 27 countries without dealing with 27 set of laws. That's when EU can have an actual AI thing because the current state of AI is just bunch of capitalists juggling money and credit among themselves to keep alive this interesting technology that looks promising but doesn't actually accomplish something yet. If EU will have anything of this sort they need a place to hold these capital gymnastics. This particular "Apply AI" strategy seems to stem from the idea that AI does some great things and EU industry should adopt it to increase productivity and not fall behind. Pure FOMO, considering that studies show very limited gains through use of AI so far.

lifestyleguru 1y ago
> Eurocrats are clueless Stop hurting yourself by thinking like this. They are extremely smart and capable, only not working in your favour.

jamesblonde 1y ago

I work with Hopsworks. I think we are the only European owned software platform for developing and running AI systems (batch, real-time, LLMS/agents) at scale.

olivermuty 1y ago
Scaleway, ovh and a bunch of other inference as a service providers dont count?
- jamesblonde 1y ago
  software platform - for training, feature engineering, inference. By that measure, they don't count. They are cloud providers. There are european inference as a service providers, too, though.

carlosjobim 1y ago

Glad to see that the EU's Tech Commissioner is one of the world's leading experts in the field of AI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henna_Virkkunen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henna_Virkkunen

CalRobert 1y ago

Ever since GDPR it has been baffling that European companies just reach for the American hyperscalers without a care in the world. Sure, _some_ companies need it, but you can get a long ways with OVH or Hetzner. I suspect many of them are just ignoring their obligations with respect to data transfers (they also fail to understand the meaning of "Freely Given Consent" or "Legitimate Interest"), and utterly pathetic and useless institutions like the Irish Data Protection Commission (https://www.dataprotection.ie/en https://www.dataprotection.ie/en) just... let them.

arhamakhtar352 1y ago

Interesting that the EU wants to push “Buy European AI,” but without clear implementation steps it feels more like strategy theater. I wonder how many of these initiatives will actually help small developers or startups build sustainable AI tools.

jamesblonde 1y ago
Or existing AI vendors build market share. Of course, it will help us. But it needs a lot of money. And the consultancy companies have been feeding from the product trough here for years. We need to keep their noses out of it.

jamesblonde 1y ago

Mods have woken up. First job - downgrade any pro European tech stories. Done.

hulitu 1y ago

> Buy European Computers: China, Taiwan Food: splitted between EU 60% China 30% and US 10% (personal experience, YMMV). Clothes: 95% S-E Asia, including China Tools: Eastern EU Energy: US, Russia /s