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The EU has begun enforcing the AI Act: first RFIs to model providers
- asdfasgasdgasdg 1mo agoI doubt it’s the end of AI access in Europe. Even if they do fine them 3% of global turnover, that’s probably a small enough fraction of their European revenue that it’s worth the risk. After all if they drop European traffic it’s not like it’ll change their fixed costs, and the marginal cost to serve Europe is probably relatively small compared to their fixed costs. I do think it’s most likely that they will end up fining the AI companies quite a bit under this act. It seems like a bit of a pattern with European legislation that disproportionately impacts American tech companies.
- satvikpendem 1mo agoPerhaps the fines themselves act as a de facto AI tax that some people have been trying to promote in the political sphere, and we'll see how successful it is.
- toenail 1mo agoFines escalate when there is no compliance.
- satvikpendem 1mo agoThen they'll just pull out eventually and save everyone the trouble.
- Gerard22Aug 1mo agoIt's a (successful?) lobbying attempt by Mistral. They are falling behind on tech and they want to win on another stupid EU law. You know what will happen next? There will be an exception carved in for "developing countries" ... like China.
- satvikpendem 1mo agoWhy would they, both the EU and Mistral specifically, want Chinese models? Isn't the (de facto, underlying) point of the act to raise up homegrown companies like Mistral?
- spiderfarmer 1mo agoIt’s how conspiracy theories work: find out who could theoretically profit, blame them and spread it as fact. It doesn’t have to stand up to scrutiny, if it sounds plausible “you told them like it is”.
- satvikpendem 1mo agoThat doesn't make any sense because Mistral wouldn't profit if Chinese models are allowed so not sure why the person above thinks the EU would add a China exemption.
- stymaar 1mo agoMistral is serving GLM in addition to their own models. But conspiracy theory don't have to make sense in the first place.
- Gerard22Aug 1mo ago"Mistral is serving GLM " ... "But conspiracy theory don't have to make sense". To me this looks like an example of broken logical thinking, no? :-)
- bestham 1mo agoI really oppose the notion that “European legislation … disproportionately impacts American tech companies”. US tech has a profound impact on the lives of everyday Europeans while the US has almost no checks and balances in place for the tech industry. Europeans are ought to be able decide how they want to live their lives and build a society. This must include deciding how much influence American tech companies shall be allowed to have by passing laws for Europe.
- spiderfarmer 1mo agoAlso, most US citizens want the same regulations as EU citizens, but only one of them have a functioning government.
- alejoar 1mo agoNo they don't.
- Barrin92 1mo agoRoughly half of American states have passed extensive internet regulation in the last few years to the point of entire businesses exciting their states, and that's the conservative parts of America. The American public, of various creeds and political orientations is as, if honestly not more skeptical of US tech companies. They simply have no control over their government, which is captured by tech CEOs. The recent anti datacenter activism extends to IIRC over 40 states now and has roughly 70% largely bipartisan support.
- alejoar 1mo agoSure, and fair. But that only explains that Americans want regulation, not that they want EU regulation. Americans put innovation and result ahead while Europe prefers precaution/fairness first. There are real costs for Europe in terms of productivity because of this. Take a look at the Draghi report. Also see European founders relocating and citing regulation as a problem when it comes to access to capital.
- pjmlp 1mo agoPoor American companies, who thinks of them when Chinese government does similar actions, and they play ball, regardless of the government actions.
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- mmaunder 1mo agoFrustrating for EU companies trying to stay competitive globally.
- satvikpendem 1mo agoClaude slop article aside, this act is one reason why some people say Europe is an open air museum, as it'd rather regulate itself to obscurity while its great works are behind it. Where is Mistral, Le Chaton Fat? They're not competitive anymore. Meanwhile China reaches ever forward because they know that speed and endurance is everything in a race, not shooting oneself in the foot.
- seibelj 1mo agoYou’ll get downvoted to oblivion but it’s true in endless ways even before AI. The EUs obsession with green energy and destroying nuclear in Germany, the wealth taxes, the bureaucracy, how it’s 10x easier to get disability than it is to start a corporation. Death by a thousand cuts. I don’t see this improving until real, visible pain is felt. They are so poor economically but the consequences are not being felt yet
- satvikpendem 1mo agoAnd it's not even just me who says this, this is an exact title I've seen online as well before, below. The reality is Europe will tend towards stagnation while other superpowers continue trudging on, some with their help of their governments while others, even despite themselves and their governments. https://www.trouw.nl/opinie/wil-europa-geen-openluchtmuseum-worden-dan-moet-de-spade-in-de-grond~b60aa4f3/ https://www.trouw.nl/opinie/wil-europa-geen-openluchtmuseum-... https://www.theprincetontory.com/is-europe-an-open-air-museum/ https://www.theprincetontory.com/is-europe-an-open-air-museu... https://www.investmentofficer.lu/en/columns/gregory-kennedy/eu-risks-becoming-open-air-museum https://www.investmentofficer.lu/en/columns/gregory-kennedy/...
- thallium205 1mo agoThe proof is in the pudding. On a pure price-return basis without dividends, an investment in the Euro Stoxx 50 in 2000 sat at approximately 0% capital growth for nearly 25 years.
- waitdontanswer 1mo ago
- tadfisher 1mo ago[flagged]
- thallium205 1mo agoEurope on another money grubbing fishing expedition on US corporations.
- OKRainbowKid 1mo agoWon't somebody think of the poor trillion dollar companies...
- cbg0 1mo agoShould the EU not enforce its own regulations? (which apply to all, not just US companies by the way)
- mhitza 1mo agoGDPR would be enough if money was the aim. Enforcement is pretty thin with that as well, not as if there weren't enough companies out there that can and need to be fined.
- aenis 1mo agoEnforcement is thin, but every large company operating in the EU pays for legal advice. It's a racket, if you are a large target you will do well to pay for external firms that employ people who personally participated in the establishment of the GDPR regime. This is a tax on the European business - one of many types.
- Hamuko 1mo ago
- stymaar 1mo ago[dead]
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- villish 1mo agoThe article only lists US labs, I wonder if that was an oversight. Chinese models are also available to Europeans through API providers. Surely they risk fines too.. right?
- ronsor 1mo agoEven Brussels knows that would be futile
- alightsoul 1mo agoIt doesn't say meta or thinking machines were asked. Does that mean asking them is futile, even though they are American labs?
- number6 1mo agoThe regulations apply foremost to closed models. Chinese companies mostly release "open models". And regarding fines, well the track record for EU fines against any big tech companies, US or China, is abysmal. Even if the companies are fined, the fine goes uncollected or is slashed after the big press release. I am looking as the DSA here...
- villish 1mo agoWhy would they not apply to all models? The models with downloadable weights aren’t “open”. Meaning no one can actually give a summary about their training content and security. Which is what they’re asking US labs.
- number6 1mo agoI actually looked up the text in the AI Act: "The obligations set out in paragraph 1, points (a) and (b), shall not apply to providers of AI models that are released under a free and open-source licence that allows for the access, usage, modification, and distribution of the model, and whose parameters, including the weights, the information on the model architecture, and the information on model usage, are made publicly available. 2This exception shall not apply to general-purpose AI models with systemic risks." https://ai-act-law.eu/article/53/ https://ai-act-law.eu/article/53/ The why is under: https://ai-act-law.eu/recital/102/ https://ai-act-law.eu/recital/102/ So the chinese models aren't exactly open like in the EU wants them to be
- Phelinofist 1mo agoIt's a good thing - AI is in basically everything, it needs regulation.
- aenis 1mo agoBy people who never built anything except bureaucracies?
- yencabulator 1mo agoPlease don't be a shallow anti-EU troll. WWW? GSM? Bluetooth? Linux? SSH? MP3? LiIon batteries? Chip wafer manufacturing methods? Skype?
- Phelinofist 1mo agoI mean it is true that Europe is lagging behind in some frontier things, but if the price for catching up means uncontrollable mega corps it is not worth it. Europe also has some very high-tech companies so I think we are still good.
- Hamuko 1mo agoWe should instead be governed by people who never built anything except giant repositories of stolen data?
- aenis 1mo agoNo, but there is quite a bit of spectrum between 'never built anything' and 'only built things unethically'. I'd prefer to be governed by people who built something in their lives, and are not career bureaucrats.
- Hamuko 1mo agoI'd definitely prefer the career bureaucrats instead of the unethical builders, and the unethical builders will be the ones governing if the AI companies are left to their own devices.
- aenis 1mo agoI absolutely hate those bureaucrats, people who never built anything and just want to control, review, and develop their cottage industries of well paid lawyers one needs to retain to operate in the market. Same as with GDPR - absolutely no positive impact on actual privacy, but a lot of burden on everyone. The worst part is, those people can't be voted out. Because of how EU works, the bureaucrats have an upper hand over the elected officials, and because of lavish compensation for the said elected officials, mostly bad people get elected anyway - those whos domestic careers have ended, or those whose parties want out of active politics, and somewhere "safe" where they can earn good money without causing any trouble. Thats a horrible system.
- cbg0 1mo ago> Same as with GDPR - absolutely no positive impact on actual privacy, but a lot of burden on everyone. Confidently wrong on this one; it has been very helpful for me to both extract data as well as exercise my right to be forgotten from various providers that would otherwise have no obligation to delete my data.
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- rcarmo 1mo agoStarted reading, saw “The timing is the story”, and my LLM-generated-spider-sense tingled. The piece is informative, but I now have no idea if the arguments are human or AI driven
- brador 1mo agoTime to collect facts and start thinking for yourself again. The age of written expertise influence is over.
- tencentshill 1mo agoGood. Too many people don't trust the media, so new reliable sources of truth need to arise. Even then, "Grok is this true?".
- thesumofall 1mo agoOne can and must discuss and challenge all these regulations, but this seems better than just sliding carelessly into some sort of mega-corp dystopia. It is good to have some balance of power. Is the EU perfect? Absolutely not, but neither are the corporates. Ideally, compromises will be found (and mostly they are found). Honestly, what’s the worst that can happen here? If this slows down the European economy, that’s a trade-off Europe has chosen to take (and yes, I’m very aware of the difficulties of fair representation in such a complex entity as the EU). We now have three big power blocks with very different politics and governance models. Isn’t that so much better than just playing one massive bet on a few big AI players? Honestly, I think it is exciting!
- jopsen 1mo ago> Honestly, what’s the worst that can happen here? Regulation that cannot practically be implemented or complied with (example: forks of open models), this leads to selective enforcement and by extension corruption and loss of rule of law. Regulation before the market has even settled down, we don't know if AI will be datacenter only, or open models everybody forks, modifies and runs locally. And we won't know for a couple for years to come.
- thesumofall 1mo agoAbsolutely fair points! > Regulation before the market has even settled down The counter point would be: the major AI providers have seemingly also lost control of their creation. So at the very least both sides are doing things before they fully understand what they are doing. Also, looking at the (planned) IPOs and the share of AI in S&P 500, one could argue that while the market hasn’t settled, it already is a massive market. When should we start regulating? Eventually it will be too late > Regulation that cannot practically be implemented or complied with Yes. Having worked with one EU authority, it’s still people who eventually do the enforcing. That has the risk of corruption but I have also seen repeatedly that they won’t do something if it violates common sense. As always, there is room for interpretation and enforcement and it will be used. Like with any good governance. And companies still can (and do!) sue
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