[ForHackernews]

I don't understand why European providers can't just host open-weight models developed by the Chinese, or distill Google/OpenAI/Anthropic models to produce their own models on the the cheap.

Nobody acts like you need to invent steel to have a steel mill.

[hobofan]

There are plenty of European providers that do. That just doesn't get much publicity, as that's just part of normal business now and not part of AI startup hype cycles.

[esafak]

So they don't have to worry about getting shut out if the Chinese stop open sourcing.

[peyton]

I don’t know either, but playbook item #20 has:

> The mechanism consists of a revenue-based levy applied to all commercial providers placing AI models on the market or putting them into service in Europe, reflecting their use of content publicly available online. This levy would apply equally to providers based abroad, creating a level playing field. The proceeds would flow into a central European fund dedicated to investing in new content creation, and supporting Europe's cultural sectors.

Presumably Mistral is putting forth the most pro-AI position possible for the region.

So it sounds like anyone doing what you described is at risk of a tax that will make their offerings uncompetitive.

So why even bother?

[Barrin92]

what's the point? The Chinese, Google and OpenAI are burning money and we get to use the service. Having AI providers locally barely creates any jobs, it's an easily substitutable service and it has (contrary to the claims by the AI crazies) very few national security implications.

Steel is a great example because we don't pollute our rivers with steel mills any more either. As Milton Friedman said, if someone wants to give you steel and you give them green sheets of paper, be thankful, nothing's easier to make than paper.

What are you losing, the bragging rights among nerds on the internet? Right now Americans are paying the energy bills, Sam Altman is paying for the compute, they make no money off it, and they're even publishing the models! So if push comes to shove, we can deploy them. But until then how is that not a great deal

[ForHackernews]

> The Chinese, Google and OpenAI are burning money and we get to use the service.

Exactly. Take what they spent a lot of R&D bucks developing and host it ourselves at the fraction of the cost.

The point is digital sovereignty. The same reason you keep data on your own hard drive instead of Google's cloud.

[enaaem]

I postulate that if AI models get better, they also become more fungible. If you want to rule the world, you should make dumb software that takes time to learn. The world economy pretty much runs on MS Excel.