EU urged to protect grassroots AI research or risk losing out to US | Hacker News Reader

EU urged to protect grassroots AI research or risk losing out to US

theguardian.com

95 pointsmagoghm64 comments

I say this being EU-based: If the EU wants a viable tech sector, in AI or otherwise, it needs to offer a business environment that can compete with Silicon Valley both economically and in terms of regulation. As long it's more lucrative to run a business in SV (let alone be employed -), that is where all significant tech will happen, where all research will get implemented, and where most talented people will move.

You can fund bleeding edge research all day, it does nothing to get around this economic fact. Any European startup that gets off the ground very much does so despite being based in Europe.

This is about open source and public funded AI, not about startups or tech sector in general.

It's still pertinent. As the article notes, EU regulation suffocates open source work as well.

And in many ways, the reason why so much of this stuff gets run as open source projects in Europe is because running it as a business wouldn't be economically viable.

Lucky for us, otherwise instead of the free/open source software of the past decades we'd only have open core and similarly crippled offerings only :)

More seriously, the motivations behind open source projects and startups are completely different, it's just the end result being software makes them seem interchangeable. Open source software should be a public service and receive public funding ideally like most infrastructure that is essential for civilization.

In terms of putting food on the table, it doesn't really matter how you run it. If you're accepting donations or charging customers, you still gotta pay your taxes.

This article focuses on the impact of the EU AI Act on open source AI work and research, but the act itself applies broadly to all development of AI, public and private.

As long as the whole EU population is anti-business (people put their money into bonds instead of stocks unlike in US), politicians have the incentive to go for the anti-business route even if it has no chance of competing with US.

I run a EU-based startup. We’re not a good counterexample because we’re not super huge, but at the same time I don’t know what you’re on about.

We sell globally. Notably, we can reach customers in the US easily - as easily as anywhere else really.

What roadblocks am I supposed to be experiencing that wouldn’t be there in the US?

EDIT: I'm not saying there's no reason there's no Google-size tech businesses in Europe. There is, or there would be. GP's tone suggests (to me) that European governments can make some easy (ish) fixes to remove roadblocks for startups. I just do not believe that the key problems with the European business climate (culture, ambition, VC-funding) are things governments can easily fix.

Eg my government (NL) tries to fix VC funding by running a bunch of government-funded VC funds and tbh it's a bit of a mixed bag. They're not bad investors to have but I doubt any Google-sized venture is gonna come out of those any time soon.

As far as I understand, tech salaries are much smaller in the EU and the UK and there's way less venture capital. Also we don't seem to be leading in tech in any way compared to SV. I guess that is what he means.

(I live in the UK and can only dream about USA level salaries).

I've actually hears that ServiceNow and SAP are both EU based, which really seems to me to prove the point more than anything.

SAP when a beaurcratic problem needs and equally byzantine solution

ServiceNow is an American, Silicon Valley software company.

HQ is in Santa Clara and it was founded in California two decades ago.

Yeah but how is lower tech salaries bad for the startup? It just makes it easier to compete on compensation, right?

I agree with the available VC money, it’s a big difference. But I don’t see how governments are supposed to fix that.

> Yeah but how is lower tech salaries bad for the startup?

The cream of the crop goes to US. There’re some other obvious disadvantages the EU has for the talent looking to immigrate, like having to learn a local language if you want to be part of the society.

This is not my experience. There's lots of extremely good programmers here. Sure, they're hard to recruit, but so are they in the US.

Cities like Amsterdam and Berlin have a huge crowd of great tech people and most don't speak the local language.

Of course people exist who move to wherever the salaries are the highest, but way more people want to be able to visit mom and dad every once in a while.

Or like to go visit Berghain once in a while.

I’m not saying that Berlin and Amsterdam only get stupid people. But it’s uncommon to meet a graduate from a top school there (which isn’t a 100% reliable metic, but anyway).

What helps Europe(and I mean mostly Germany) are more relaxed immigration rules. Like you can come looking for job without having a job offer, or get permanent residence quickly. Working visas also aren’t capped like H1B.

Top school? In which countries? My money is on you're just considering US schools

I'm not convinced it is really about something as simple as salaries. If it was people would be flocking to SV from here. They are not. The vast majority of those who could get jobs in SV stay here. And the vast majority of those who do take jobs in SV, eventually come back.

I have had that choice to move to SV several times. And no doubt make a pile of money. But I don't want to live in the US. I want to live here. And if you follow indices that measure quality of life, security, democracy, freedom etc. it is easy to see why. Norway is usually at the top of those indices -- the US very much isn't.

I think this is also the reason we have an anemic tech sector: if you have a lot to lose, you become risk averse. Why start a company and gamble money when you can find a mediocre, well paid job where you work 7.5 hours per day, 5 days per week, go home at the end of the day and focus on what you want to do?

I think part of our problem is a lack of fear of not making it. We don't have to make it to have a good life. And we know it.

(It is also a factor that the cost of living in SV is a lot higher than here. I did the numbers many years ago, and I'd have to make more than double what I make here to have the same amount of disposable income in SV)

For what it's worth, there's a huge barrier to get to SV in the form of US immigration policies. Your anecdote is no doubt valid, but if those immigration policies were loosened up, I'd bet we'd see an even larger migration to SV.

But that wasn't really the question. The question was if people who can will move.

> But I don't want to live in the US. I want to live here. And if you follow indices that measure quality of life, security, democracy, freedom etc. it is easy to see why

If you go by the internet metrics that are vastly skewed to be anti capitalist, then sure.

In reality, US is very much "make your own life". We have conservative areas, liberal areas, and everything in between. You can live in a busy city, or you can live very remotely.

Objectively speaking, if you take your salary+benefits-taxes in US versus salary+benefits-taxes in EU, the only way EU wins is if you are still in early stages of career and start having kids.

So Norway is anti-capitalist? Uh. Right.

I don't understand how you infer that from what I said.

I can see how you might think that. It is easy to think that adequate wealth is a goal in itself. Especially if you either do not have adequate wealth or you become caught up in securing that level of wealth even after you are there. Wealth gives you the things you really care about. Such as freedom and security which ultimately enables happiness and contentment. (Enables, not provides).

It is easier to see from the flip side: if you lack freedom and security, what good is wealth? You're just a prisoner with a somewhat nicer cage. If you see wealth as a goal in itself, then it just means you probably haven't actually got a plan for why you are chasing wealth.

Pretty sure US is the most "free" country by standard metrics. You can do a lot of stuff in US that you cannot do in other countries.

It doesn't matter what you are "pretty sure" about. There are organizations that try to quantify these things and produce concrete metrics, and it might surprise you to learn that they don't necessarily agree with your world view.

I'm in the UK and that's my impression of the USA. How ever most people I talk to here seem to think that the USA is some gun ridden bible bashing hell hole. I remember trying to persuade some one that "no really the USA has separation of church and state", they basically didn't believe me and seemed to think the UK had a more secular set up (we have church of England and king is head of that church)

I'm a Brit and have lived in the US for 10 years now. While the US has the more secular constitution, culturally and politically religion is far more influential in the US than the UK. Since the late 1970s the Republican Party began courting white evangelicals and it is now heavily associated with their beliefs. Republican Supreme Court Justices have opened the way for Republican controlled states to ban abortion and I expect we will see pregnant women die in these states as they are unable to access appropriate healthcare much as they did in Ireland until relatively recently.

The secular nature of the US constitution was designed to protect religious freedom while in the UK religion was subjugated to the interests of the state - the Church of England was setup so that the King could get a divorce after all!

I have spent a good deal of time in the US during my previous job. To some extent I agree that the US has a lot of opportunity (not just work, but food, culture etc.) and it was great being there. At the same time I can walk the streets of a bigger city in the EU without running into a homeless village and/or a homeless person harassing passer-bys if I make the wrong turn. And more importantly I can walk. I can take a tram to the city center and have a beer, not site in an Uber or my car for 1 hour in case I live in a nice gated community in the suburbs.

> I live in the UK and can only dream about USA level salaries

The cost of living in SV is insanely high. If you think rent is high in London or Amsterdam, think again.

These are outliers, and they don't have a good social system to save those in need. You also need to take into account tax and cost of living.

Yes, there's a couple of people who seemingly win, but everything counted its a minus in my eyes.

I've been in SV in 2005. I don't want to live there. The weather is decent and landscape is good, but I'm fine here in The Netherlands. I have access to beach, the weather is decent too, income is acceptable, there's a working social system, and on the plus side I also don't have earthquakes in the area where I live. Oh, and if you're a foreigner: people speak English. Though you'll find the same in say Berlin.

Probably thinking of things like GDPR, employment laws. Do you actually see no differences at all in the regulatory environment between EU and USA? What's the american equivalent of the retirement age the French are so upset about? Can you fire someone on the spot in the EU?

Those things, as well as very real differences in taxation.

GDPR holds if you sell in the EU, irrespective of whether you are in the EU. Also it’s really quite a decent law, barring a few obvious quirks. It can only be a serious hindrance to success for the scummiest kinds of startups.

We can’t fire people on the spot but close enough (here in NL). It’s true ish that we can’t motivate people with fear though, we have to actually make them like their jobs, and carefully consider at the right moment whether to extend contracts. Again, not really a hindrance.

The % of tech workers in both the EU and the US that are near any country’s retirement age is so small that I think either you’re kidding or you’re not really trying to make an actual argument at all.

> We can’t fire people on the spot but close enough (here in NL). It’s true ish that we can’t motivate people with fear though, we have to actually make them like their jobs, and carefully consider at the right moment whether to extend contracts. Again, not really a hindrance.

It's not really about motivation. Difficulty of terminating employment can make employees a real liability when you're small if they turn out to be a bad fit.

Bigger businesses can accept it as cost of doing business, but it may break a small business.

> It's not really about motivation. Difficulty of terminating employment can make employees a real liability when you're small if they turn out to be a bad fit.

Given significantly smaller salaries and the typical 3-6 months probationary period before going full time, I don't think this is much of a risk. If someone turns out to be a 'bad' fit 6 months in, the employee isn't the only thing in need of looking into.

> What roadblocks am I supposed to be experiencing that wouldn’t be there in the US?

Suppose, the startup went bankrupt (idea not relevant anymore, market conditions changed etc.) What would be the cost of abandoning the current one and spinning up a new one in EU for the founder?

Just.. let it go bust? I’m not even sure what you’re asking tbh.

Are there any repercussions for the owner in EU? Like not being able to open a personal bank account or start a new business for a few years?

That's more than anything because of: corporate taxation and bureaucracy. It's out of control here in Europe. Business don't have a fair chance against US businesses.

One of the great things about being European is that we will constantly see some random city promoted as "the Silicon Valley of Europe", and the city seems to change once every three or five years.

What's the last one?

I stopped reading the articles, but the last one I can recall was Barcelona I think. Just some random search engine hits since I don't exactly bookmark the articles:

https://www.inc.com/bryan-adams/this-unsuspecting-european-c...

https://www.barcelonacatalonia.eu/en/microsoft-stresses-that...

https://thenextweb.com/news/barcelona-not-next-silicon-valle...

That's not unique to Europe; the USA has done this countless times in the last 20+ years, mainly on the east coast. Some city or region will proclaim themselves "the next Silicon Valley", and of course it doesn't happen. NYC tried it once, calling themselves "Silicon Alley".

Much of the USA is jealous of Silicon Valley's success, and they try to make themselves the next SV without actually learning why SV became successful in the first place and emulating that. So, for instance, one big reason SV has continued to be successful is the fact that non-compete agreements are unenforceable in the state of California. A SV tech employee can easily leave their job and go to work down the street for a competing company. This isn't true in most other states, and noncompete employment clauses can be common.

Unfortunately the "business environment" is a bunch of things with a lot of path dependency and clustering, even in terms of regulation it's most helpful to have (even by coincidence) made what turned out to be important choices decades ago. I recommend "How Law Made Silicon Valley" https://scholarlycommons.law.emory.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?a... which contrasts with EU and Japan. Still, no time like the present to start getting to a better place.

It's all about amount of available VC money to burn and a culture of risk taking, which we both lack in EU, regulation has nothing to do with that.

> it needs to offer a business environment that can compete with Silicon Valley

That means becoming the USA, wich I don't think Europeans want that

And to be honest with you, I don't think Silicon Valley is a thing anymore, the real competition is East, in Asia, nobody plays with hardware and robotics in the west, and that's a big problem, education is missing in the equation, AI isn't just about chat bots

Asia doesn't even compete with Silicon Valley..

The idea that EU should compete with the US is outdated and doesn't work, as a result, both the US and the EU are missing the big rendez-vous that's gonna shape the 22th century, the goal goes beyond creating a "business environment", it's about shaping a new civilization that moves forward, rather than stagnate for a whole century, look at the political climate over here, it's not looking good..

EDIT:

Just today:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-05-04/peter-thi...

Probably the most relevant example of why the eu will continue lagging is that openai was founded by americans and east europeans as was google. That’s a total no go in europe, particularly in germany. The eu can regulate itself all it wants but until it learns how to actually collaborate it wont get far. You cant thrive with a mindset stuck in the wrong era. And that applies to almost everything europeans do.

I suspect the biggest difference is simply the size of the US market. While the EU has done a huge amount to reduce barriers to trade between member countries, they will perhaps always be far more culturally and linguistically distinct. That makes it far more difficult to scale companies up.

Its cool to see there was only a passing mention of rules/regulations in the article and most focus on Open Source work.

I can get behind a government who funds open source software, hard to imagine a better ROI.

Speaking of which, can we get funding for FreeCAD? Outside of AI, having CAD software that doesnt change pricing every year has been monumental for me being able to start a design engineering business. I didn't have 10k to spend on a 2-3 year development cycle as a little guy, not to mention the value it would provide medium and large players to not be under Dassault's boot.

Make it easier to immigrate. Make housing affordable. I'm sure many talented young people would rather live in the EU than the US.

Probably not if you have the skills to write cutting edge AI.

I think lots of young people would rather live there, but when you have a high value skill, things like 'affordable housing' aren't a big deal when you make 250k/yr vs 90k.

They are tho. I made north of half a million a year in the US and am still moving back to the EU.

It's not just about how much I make, that reaches diminishing returns relatively quickly.

It also matters how well other people, not in tech live. I got tired of all the homelessness around me caused by low wages and high rents. I got tired of all the drug abuse that happens as a result of that hopeless situation. I got tired of all the crime that follows.

I want to go back to a society that works, not just a dystopian hell scape where I can be rich.

you're only doing this after you made your money in the USA and will presumably be far richer than your neighbors back in the EU.

His savings will be higher, sure (though living in SF is horribly expensive so he might not have as much as you think). However, his income in the EU will be the same as his peers there, and he'll need to live within that new income.

Having a lifestyle that costs more per-month than your income is stupid and unsustainable; it's unlikely he has that much money saved to live that way for the rest of his life. So, at best, he'll have a bunch of cash to pay for a nicer place to live if he decides to purchase something (and if so, he'll still have to pay higher taxes and living costs out of his current income).

Basically, he has a really nice retirement savings now. He's probably not going to be living like a king.

You could just move out of SF to like, Miami or Atlanta ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I mean you do you, but you're really describing a problem that doesn't exist outside of SF, LA, and Seattle.

Or to Redmond/Bellevue/Kirkland/Issaquah (suburbs of Seattle).

Sure, come over the our EU utopia...

Come to think of it, if only it would be possible to do a swap. Half a mil a year to live in SF sounds harsh but worth the risk.

Quality of life is important to some people. 250k/year isn't that great when you can't afford a decent dwelling, there's no decent public transit. there's people pooping on the sidewalks, and tech company founders getting stabbed to death in the street.

You're not going to get everyone, but you only need a relatively small number of highly-talented people to make your company successful.

San Francisco has quality of life issues but they are completely unrelated to the tech company founder being stabbed to death by a tech consultant over a personal issue.

> Nima Momeni, the man accused of murdering Cash App founder Bob Lee, stabbed him three times with a kitchen knife on a dark San Francisco street after Momeni confronted Lee about Lee’s relationship with the suspect’s sister, city prosecutors alleged Friday.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/nima-momeni-arraig...

Offer exchanges of residence. Exchange one US worker who wants to be here for one EU worker who wants to be there.

The US has the double benefit of being a true immigrant nation which welcomes and threats all people equally. No country in the EU can boast of the same.

I noticed similar discussions about the Web and mobile (iPhone era), as Europe fell behind the US lead in those sectors. As well as space (particularly with regards to SpaceX lapping everybody; the EU thinking it can discuss its way to creating a Starlink competitor most recently).

The take a decade to discuss what to do approach isn't going to cut it with how exceptionally fast AI is now moving. Europe is already losing badly. It'll take a gigantic move - and fast - to catch up.

If/when EU starts considering some move it is usually already too late and there are mostly half measures proposed anyway.

You can't decree inovation in central planning economy that EU is at heart..

Never have I seen a title so perfectly encapsulate the very problem it's trying to solve.

If you keep trying to "protect" your research from any kind of competition, you're doomed from the start.

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