[bradhe]

Got it, so every country should focus on having a mediocre-at-best AI strategy by refusing to work together? Surely this will create a better future instead of pooling resources.

This vaguely-nationalist world view around tech that’s emerging in Europe is dangerous, man.

On the brain drain problem in particular, one way to ensure talent sticks around is to create a good environment for people to do their best work. In much of Europe, getting bureaucracy out of the way and encouraging real investment would go a long way. People leave because they can make more money and they want to be surrounded by the best people. People would trade some of that off to stick around their home countries, however if you go to California and talk to folks from e.g. NL or DE working on this stuff, they have a lot to say about innovation and working culture back home.

[Certhas]

This "vaguely nationalistic world view around tech" is a direct consequence of the US government weaponizing its leading tech firms reach into the EU for nationalistic purposes.

The EU was build on the principles of collaboration, to overcome the nationalistic impulses. Free trade and free movement of people, no need for everyone to replicate what everyone else is doing. Preventing individual nation states from favoring and supporting their home grown firms over other EU firms is a central legal principle.

But this only works if it is reciprocal. And ideally if the partners are roughly on the same level. When you force developing nations in trade deals to not protect local firms, you are also preventing them from moving up the value chain and locking them into the position of "raw material providers".

When trading with China we know that China has absolutely no qualms supporting its strategic industries with a truck load of subsidies. And it is preventing foreign firms from investing and selling on the domestic market.

For the longest time the US was considered a safe partner though. Sure, plenty of disagreements in the details, but in principle someone whom you can rely on. That idea has been decisevly dismantled over the last 10ish years. The US unilaterally cut of the EMails of EU courts. The US has unilaterally decided that EU partners cannot use Fable/Mythos.

The only reasonable reaction is to make sure that the EU can maintain and create its own critical infrastructure.

[trhway]

>This "vaguely nationalistic world view around tech" is a direct consequence of the US government weaponizing its leading tech firms reach into the EU for nationalistic purposes.

And in response NL should weaponize ASML for example. Then both sides would naturally back down. Specialization is the most efficient way of developing tech civilization.

Whereis everybody building their own mediocre versions would be repeating Russia in its attempt to make its own national messenger - a lot of government money sunk, yet people are still using Telegram/etc.

[saidnooneever]

Of NL weaponizes ASML they will just take their IP and leave NL and then they have nothing. They have already pushed a lot of things out of NL and should invest in leveraging the position without weaponizing it.

[enaaem]

If ASML is just IP then everyone would have already copied it. They have an extremely deep and high tech supply chain that is nearly impossible to copy.

[dijksterhuis]

ASML wiki for those like me who were confused https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASML

(despite the name, i am not dutch)

[jaapz]

I am quite interested to hear how you would pronounce your name, dike-ster-house (assuming you live in the US)?

[dijksterhuis]

> dike-ster-house

yep, basically. 3rd one down https://www.howtopronounce.com/dijksterhuis

the story behind it: i was looking for a name to write music under. and i was reading academic papers about subliminal messaging in music and stuff. i came across a paper where they seemed to be absolutely ripping into this "dijksterhuis" guy's previous paper. felt bad for him. felt like he was an underdog. so i ran with that name.

[fransje26]

> (despite the name, i am not dutch)

Some close or far ancestor was though. :'-)

[nradov]

Let's not overstate the case. The EU was built to keep France and Germany from getting into another war, and it has been successful at that. All the other "principles" are just window dressing.

[mvc]

Isn't it up to Europeans to define the purpose of the EU? What's your claim to having the right to define it?

[nradov]

I'm not defining anything. I'm just explaining why the key decision makers actually created the EU. The statements made for public consumption shouldn't be taken too seriously.

[DiogenesKynikos]

You're vastly underestimating the economic importance of EU integration.

[nradov]

Is that why the EU economic growth rate is so stagnant?

[spacemanspiffii]

Simplistic reply without substance. The EU economic growth is influenced by much more than just the integration. It can be stagnant not because but despite the integration. It could also be the case that EU integration was an attempt to improve economy but it didn't work out.

[nradov]

So no evidence of economic importance.

[themgt]

This "vaguely nationalistic world view around tech" is a direct consequence of the US government ... The EU was build on the principles of collaboration ... But this only works if it is reciprocal.

This sounds great but doesn't really make any sense. What skeptics are saying is there should be a pan-EU effort to build frontier models, rather than one-off toy models built by each country as a box-ticking exercise.

"We built the EU as a powerful supranational organization, so logically the EU's response to a great power challenge in the realm that may well define the 21st century is gonna be to shatter its efforts into 27 useless pieces, because Trump bad" is just absolutely ridiculous and will not lead to anything good. Be the change you want to see, etc.

[Certhas]

Look I agree with all you said. The EU should do this but the EU is also structurally bad at large concerted efforts exactly because it is a collaboration mechanism, not a super state.

[akie]

Whatever topic comes up on this board, if the EU is mentioned people go a bit cray-cray.

If an individual country trains a language model, it's not ambitious enough. If we try to do one for the whole EU they will say it takes too long (you need to get all countries on board, you see). If the EU announces it by executive decision it's a dictatorship and government driven economic intervention, if a EU company does it they'll say it's not good enough.

You can't win with these people. In my opinion, you shouldn't even try to convince them.

[Gud]

Why would it have to be mediocre?

Both Netherlands and Sweden produce highly competent researchers. Per capita on par with any other location on the planet, including California.

This will be good for Europe as a whole and also the planet.

[kortilla]

Producing local researchers isn’t enough. If you want a competitive model you need to bring the best researchers from all over the world. That means lots of investment that hasn’t been common in Europe.

[aoshifo]

But it's a start

[colordrops]

Sure, but there is still a more dense talent pool with SV companies, and training frontier models requires massive amounts of capital. Are Netherlands and Sweden prepared to invest 10s of billions?

[varjag]

My impression is the talent pool for core model development in SV isn't huge and is already grabbed by the usual suspects. Everyone else sloshing in the vague broader AIsphere are application bros whose value in the supply chain is minimal.

[Gud]

Honestly I have a strong suspicion that “the talent pool” will shift towards Europe and China and I believe it’s already happening.

And yes, I do believe Europe will invest in this technology.

[tcp_handshaker]

You missed the part where they got 13 million EUR , 3 years ago! and dont have a release yet....Definitely doing it at European pace...they will have release two when AGI is around...

[vitalyan123]

>and also the planet.

What a glorious day for Canada and, therefore, the world.

[Gud]

I don’t think it’s good that the USA has so much influence due to their dominance in information technology.

It was only nominally democratic, now it’s a total shit show.

[budsniffer952]

>total shit show

Are there people legitimately brain-rotted such that they believe stuff like this?

Outside of the constant flow of "hey guys, look at the latest dumb thing Trump did" coming from entertainment outfits posing as news, what are we even talking about? Life goes on as normal for the Americans. You are way too online.

[Gud]

Yes, the current administration has been in power for less than two years so obviously the “day to day life” hasn’t changed much for the average American (except everything has gotten more expensive).

The US is no longer looked at as a superpower, it just surrendered to a regional power and will pay $300B USD in tribute.

But for Trump and his cronies life certainly has improved.

But the damage is done and we are witnessing the decline and destruction of the worlds greatest Empire of all time.

[trollbridge]

Nitpick: it’s 6 years.

[mannanj]

The us stopped being looked at as a superpower as a brain rotted Alzheimer’s patients president rose to power on the campaign “don’t let Trump win” and then did little productive except stoke wars and pardon his son and his friends from crimes.

[ltrg]

> This vaguely-nationalist world view around tech that’s emerging in Europe is dangerous, man.

It’s a response to the actually-nationalist practice of the United States. I can understand why it might feel different from California, but things are a bit scary over here right now.

[olmo23]

> This vaguely-nationalist world view around tech that’s emerging in Europe is dangerous, man.

It's a direct response to the MAGA / America First attitude of the American electorate.

[blackoil]

Collectively Europe has talent and money to support it. Whole point of sovreignity around it is to have inhouse the talent and capacity to have essential resources even if it can be have for cheap from other nations/alliances.

That is why people lament at idea of being completely dependent on Russian gas, US tech or Chinese manufacturing.

[trollbridge]

The EU should absolutely be running frontier labs producing frontier models.

The fact they aren’t points to the moribund nature of things in the EU tech space. Both China and America are doing this although with very different approaches.

[torginus]

wdym? it says 13.5 million euros has been allocated to the project - you aint building a frontier LLM with that kind of money, but its enough to give research opportunities and real-world experience to a handful of researchers, and build up local competence.

These people can then fund for-profit companies once they have a promising approach and bring in private investment.

As for nationalism, like it or not, this is a govt sponsored effort, and governments and universities are funded by the public of specific nations

[saidnooneever]

this exactly. its not nationalistic at all to support your local development. this project has different goals than people perceive and their comments are all missing the plank ;)

[hrmon]

> This vaguely-nationalist world view around tech that’s emerging in Europe is dangerous, man.

Guess which country blocked access to a SOTA model based on national security bullshit.

[bradhe]

Okay fair point

[legacynl]

Hopefully you understand that there's an obvious selection bias you encounter when talking to folks from NL or DE in California. Ofc the people that moved will think there's a good reason for them moving. But people who live here have good reasons for staying here.

[notarobot123]

> pooling resources

Your argument would suggest the EU developing a European model would be a better direction. A heavy-weight competitor would help advance the field after all.

> getting bureaucracy out of the way and encouraging real investment

I don't think this is really about regulation - it's about network effects. The only way to compete with strong network-effects is to create your own.

> This vaguely-nationalist world view around tech

Nationalism breeds nationalism and it is the fundamental reason European states feel the need to build their own expertise. Can you imagine if your country was subject to the whims of an aspiring dictator?

[aoshifo]

I don't see it as a nationalist world view around tech in Europe. There is certainly a push for "sovereignty", but that mostly means sovereign from the US. But European countries are actively working together on this.

> Got it, so every country should focus on having a mediocre-at-best AI strategy by refusing to work together? Surely this will create a better future instead of pooling resources.

Yeah, why is Anthropic making their own mediocre models, if they could just pool their resources with OpenAI, that makes no sense.

[woctordho]

Users don't need to build wheels. Wheel builders need to first learn to build some mediocre wheels, then they can build better ones.

[torginus]

wdym? it says 13.5 million euros has been allocated to the project - you aint building a frontier LLM with that kind of money, but its enough to give research opportunities and real-world experience to a handful of researchers, and build up local competence.

These people can then fund for-profit companies once they have a promising approach and bring in private investment

[torginus]

wdym? it says 13.5 million euros has been allocated to the project - you aint building a frontier LLM with that kind of money, but its enough to give research opportunities and real-world experience to a handful of researchers, and build up local competence.

[throwaway98797]

if something’s strategically important for safety it’s wise to have competency in it.

[expedition32]

Tech sovereignty is a response to American imperialism. It has not gone unnoticed that the White House has summoned the tech bros and weaponised tech.