[stared]

I feel that not only is Europe losing its independence to the US and China, but it does not even try to take part in the race.

Unlike the US, Europe has no California-level VCs. I don't expect hundreds of billions of Euros to be poured into long-shot projects.

Unlike China, Europe has neither cohesive public investment at the global level nor the drive to grow. Long-term investments have a lot of words, a lot of regulations, a lot of proxy goals, but there is neither a lot of money nor urgency. It was captured by this post: https://x.com/piotrsankowski/status/2065795919623438546

So yeah, both in economy and warfare, Europe dooms itself to be in the hands of the US, China, or a mix of both.

[creesch]

> Unlike the US, Europe has no California-level VCs.

Some would consider that a good thing. There is a lot to be said for VC in recent years not being beneficial for the economy, certainly on an individual level, other than "number go up".

[stared]

Sure.

At the same time, it made in many cases EU dependent on the US. A lot of governments are basically dependent on MS Office or Google Cloud.

With AI, it is even more strategic.

[layer8]

My impression is that in Europe much fewer people are convinced that AI-maxxing is necessary or even a net benefit.

[c7b]

And if you ask a bit more, you'll find that those same people are very likely to daily-drive AI models, desktop and phone operating systems and various other software critical to their professional and personal lives from US companies. And buy tons of Chinese products over Chinese or US e-commerce platforms.

What people say matters much less than what they do.

[WarmWash]

Much fewer people in Europe are convinced maxxing anything besides work/life/life balance and generous social support are a benefit.

All the stuff that doesn't help an economy grow or pay for the future.

[holistio]

I have rather deep concerns about our future with AI.

Yet, I'm still sending hundreds of dollars to US companies providing it. I'd much rather send it to EU companies.

[jeroenhd]

Americans are also far less into AI than a startup forum like HN will make you believe.

In real life, there are a few AI maniacs that make their entire identity about how they use AI, but it's hardly the sensation that the internet will make you believe. I don't believe there is any difference between the USA and Europe, although the lack of employee protection does mean that it's a lot easier for Americans to lose their jobs when their managers get lured in by AI companies.

After all, the entire AI bubble is all about VCs and startups hyping each other up until profits magically appear.

[king_phil]

Which has nothing to do with VCs, just with sourcing decisions.

[stared]

If there were European MicroSoft or Google, there would be a preference.

[guywithahat]

Well those companies exist because of VC's, and the nation's business freedom compared to Europe

[guywithahat]

> There is a lot to be said for VC in recent years not being beneficial for the economy

What a wild statement, VC's are behind most of the growth in the US economy, and they directly drive up wages in tech. I'd be fascinated to hear a valid complaint of VC's that isn't just money envy

[creesch]

Economic growth doesn't mean much if the benefits are concentrated in a small percentage of the population.

And while I can't disagree it has benefited tech wages historically that is just one industry. Then there are also the recent mass layoffs.

[flanked-evergl]

Some people consider it a good thing that communists boiled people's hands as torture. Some people consider it a good think that Iran massacred 10,000s of its own citizens. Some would consider it a good thing that Israel killed all Palestinians in Gaza.

[creesch]

Lol, okay bud. Lets go all in on the extreme hyperboles.

[flanked-evergl]

I mean if morality is just personal preference why do we even allude to it at all?

[creesch]

Is that what I said in your mind? I honestly had to chuckle at the extreme hyperboles you decided to use. Surely having a less favorable view of hyper capitalist economics is on the same level as torture and genocide. Yup, that is a totally reasonable and measured response that just exemplifies acting in good faith.

Anyway, thanks for genuine chuckle your response got out of me.

[flanked-evergl]

You don't even say it is a good thing. The closest to morality come is alluding to the fact that someone holds the opinion that it's good. Even though you also likely hold this opinion, you don't even want to go as far as saying that you think it's a good thing.

This is entirely absurd.

[ews]

Europe decided to regulate the hell out of foreign AI instead of investing in their own systems. It's sad to see the European continent lost the race to create a decent startup ecosystem (no decent search engines, social networks, cloud, mobile OS) and now it seems to be hellbent in losing this battle.

[joe_mamba]

>It's sad to see the European continent lost the race to create a decent startup ecosystem

What's ironic and sad at the same time is that pre-2022 Russia's Yandex(domestic Russian variant of Google) was lightyears ahead of what EU, a significantly richer and more capable block, had. IIRC, their reverse image search was so good, they had to nerf it because people were using it to find the identity of people from photos.

Same for Israel, their tech sector is probably greater than the EU one combined

Absolutely shameful how the EU kept managing to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory over and over.

[vovavili]

Not surprising. All the Yandex people that moved over to here to the Netherlands that I know of are astounded about the insane difference in the tax burden between what they had in Russia and what they have in Western Europe (when their 5 year tax discount ends, that is). If the government takes the bulk of your income after a certain point, there isn't really that big of a push to create ground-breaking technology.

[conradkay]

> If the government takes the bulk of your income after a certain point, there isn't really that big of a push to create ground-breaking technology.

I'm skeptical that high taxes is a large reason to lose to California of all places. Maybe in some important sense CA has "earned" that via talent and funding density while NL hasn't (from the perspective of a company, to be clear)

[joe_mamba]

NL is a corporate tax haven in Europe(and also compared to California), that's why almost all US and foreign companies have their corporate HQs there, Dublin or Luxembourg.

Companies go there because taxes are low for them, not necessarily for their employees(ignoring the NL 5 year tax break for foreigners). It's kinda like the US Delaware of Europe.

[wolvoleo]

We also have much nicer societies than Russia. It's a dictatorship ffs.

And yes having nice things cost money. And a safety net is important.

I would never want to live in America even if I got 3x my wage. Nor Russia of course but that's a foregone conclusion.

[vanviegen]

I think much of that is because European customers (both private and business) tended to prefer American suppliers over suppliers from European countries that were not their own. That may have something to do with most people in IT being quite fluent in English, while European products were all-to-often half-heartedly translated from German/French/Spanish/Polish/Italian/Ukranian.

In many cases, well-established and well-liked European services have been supplanted by American counterparts that came later and were not really better in any way. They did usually have much more money to burn though, undercutting pricing until competition was dead.

I'm speaking in the past tense, because now for the first time in the couple of decades I can remember, there seems to be a somewhat commonly held preference for European suppliers.

[throw-the-towel]

Frankly, being Russian myself, I'm also very disappointed by the state of tech in Europe.

But you know what hurts the most? That I know it wasn't always that way.

I'm sitting right now in the same country that invented the Minitel, built out the TGV network and the Grands Projets, and don't even get me started about the weird and wonderful machines they've got in that museum in Mulhouse, hell, you could go back in time to Gustave Eiffel. Industry and ambition used to be here. It was almost physically painful to discover that it seems to be gone now.

[RetroTechie]

> It was almost physically painful to discover that it seems to be gone now.

It's not gone, it just needs to be re-discovered. And the bureaucrats need to flash some € then get out of the way.

[dmix]

The EU chips act was already largely a failure and they threw plenty of money at it. The problem with the Europe is they look to their bureaucrats to stimulate things then expect different results from the last 50 times.

Europe needs its own private industry that attracts talent and capital. It doesn’t need another EU press release talking about hopes and dreams

[joe_mamba]

>The EU chips act was already largely a failure and they threw plenty of money at it.

Yep, the proof is in the pudding. They managed to grab defeat from the jaws of victory again when US got TSMC to open a fab there.

For example, both German and Austrian semiconductor companies are choosing to expand manufacturing in Malaysia and not domestically.

I don't know what more proof people need that the EU is cooked on manufacturing side.

>The problem with the Europe is they look to their bureaucrats to stimulate things then expect different results from the last 50 times.

The definition of insanity. This is a mentality problem and is deeply ingrained into the EU population. European people are always looking at the state to solve any problems including those of industry and free market, without realizing the state mostly isn't good at those things and they'd actually be better off with less government there. Whenever the state intervenes into the economy it just further supports the massive bloated legacy companies who lobby the politicians never the startup ecosystem. And then people mistake again by voting for more government hoping to fix that which just results in more expensive bloat and more red tape nor a competitive freer market with more capital and innovation.

>Europe needs its own private industry that attracts talent and capital. It doesn’t need another EU press release talking about hopes and dreams

Hey, it worked for the USSR, right? ;)

[joe_mamba]

>It's not gone, it just needs to be re-discovered.

After how much time of not being discovered does it count of it being gone?

> And the bureaucrats need to flash some € then get out of the way.

And when is the EU gonna do that? When pigs fly?

[gonzalohm]

You are saying that as if China or the US are completely isolated from the EU. We live in a globalized world whether you like it or not, and every supply chain spans multiple countries.

Arguably, staying out of the AI "race" is a good thing

[stared]

Military race isn't a good think either, but you don't want to be on the losing side.

[TacticalCoder]

> Unlike the US, Europe has no California-level VCs. I don't expect hundreds of billions of Euros to be poured into long-shot projects.

My ex-neighbor (when I was a teenager, living in Belgium) and very good friend really wanted to make it big. He became a chip engineer, moved to California, raised money for a first startup (it tanked) then raised money for a second startup. He made the world a better place (he created some very specific micro-inverters for solar panels) and made a $$$ exit.

The EU saw exactly zero of the wealth he created and he's never ever coming back to what he considers a failure of a continent.

That's the problem: many of the great minds with the mindset required to do great things already left the EU.

> So yeah, both in economy and warfare, Europe dooms itself to be in the hands of the US, China, or a mix of both.

And in energy (economy is energy and energy is economy, and China really understood that) the EU doomed itself to be in the hands of Russia.

We are a failure of sinking continent.

[WarmWash]

Europe is a great place to live if you just want to float through life.

The US is a great place to live if you have talent, want to work, and want to reap the rewards.

[throw-the-towel]

> economy is energy and energy is economy, and China really understood that

In former times the energy monopoly was called "The Power Company"; we intend to give this name an entirely new meaning."

– CEO Nwabudike Morgan, "The Centauri Monopoly"

[eightysixfour]

I'll play devil's advocate a little bit - I'm not sure it is losing its "independence" by not taking part in the race. It could very well be that it is gaining independence from tech and choosing a "second mover advantage" to decide how it gets deployed after seeing how it impacts everyone else. Let the US and China experiment on the bleeding edge (and their citizens feel the effect, both good and bad), and then be picky about how you use it.

I don't know if it is the right strategy but there's certainly a legitimate strategy in there.

[sarjann]

The problem is recursive self improvement creating a very difficult gap and the fact that power, compute has a lag from when you invest and when data centers come up.

You also can't just spin up a research team out of nowhere.

[eightysixfour]

These things are true, however:

1. The labs in the US and China don't seem to have any problem selling (or even giving) access to these models right now.

2. If some kind of take-off happens which makes that not true, my bet is all bets are off on what that outcome even looks like. What would the economic paradigm even be under a superintelligent AGI? Do you think "it" is going to listen when Trump says "you can't work with Europe"?

There's a whole bunch of grey in between the two, for example only having access to second rate models, but I'm not sure that particularly matters if the strategy is "second mover."

[numeri]

I mean, it might listen to him. We have no clue, which is the problem.

[eightysixfour]

Sure, but my guess is for "true" super intelligence we won't be able to predict whether that is true or not until it happens. I'm not a doomer, but I also don't really think we can "align" people, much less a "super intelligent" AI.

[stared]

Let’s autonomous Russian drones, and Europe is at mercy of two other empires, who capitalize on this opportunity.

[surgical_fire]

Europe is not a country.

Regulations are not even throughout each of the 27 member states. Each country is relatively small in the world stage.

Until EU progresses towards federalization, discussing this is a moot point.

[input_sh]

Serious question: what does any of that have to do with the submitted article? Where is the relevance to the topic at hand?