EU AI Act To Target US Open Source Software | Hacker News Reader

EU AI Act To Target US Open Source Software

technomancers.ai

47 pointsr3trohack3r26 comments

What distinguishes a generative model from other AI models? That the size of the output is larger than some threshold than the input?

Also, the provisions in this bill make me think it has to be placative theatrics, as I don't see how something so ambiguous in its rules, and with such ridiculous teeth, could be passed.

from here https://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2014_2019/plmrep/COM...

"Providers of foundation models used in AI systems specifically intended to generate, with varying levels of autonomy, content such as complex text, images, audio, or video (“generative AI”) "

I think your characterisation of input vs output size may be useful, or it may be the more the open-endedness of it.

By the time this gets voted , AI will have moved a few galaxies further away. This is either ridiculous posturing for political points or one more cookie prompt nonsense.

I wonder what kind of statement was Google making when they specifically did not release new Bard in EU or canada

AKA The “Make AI illegal without saying so Act.”

> The EU is, essentially, ordering large American tech companies to put American small businesses out of business

The FUD is real

Now here is your opportunity to throw this 144 page PDF of the draft into whatever LLM you are using, GPT-4, ChatGPT, Anthropic Claude, Bard, WhateverGPT: [0]

Go for it and show the whole world and do a ELI5, summarization, etc about what exactly this AI Act is all about.

[0] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2014_2019/plmrep/COM...

And Europeans wonder why no major tech company ever came out of the EU.

What about ASML, SAP, Dassault, NXP, Infineon, and STMicroelectronics?

I love how every time this EU thing is mentioned, you already know beforehand the 5 companies they'll mention as a "counterpoint"

A lot of the EUV development was done by US companies and national labs.

> A lot of the research was funded by Intel and a couple of other US chip firms and was done in US national labs, which had the types of equipment and testing capabilities that were needed to actually make UV light at the requisite wavelength possible. But there was no US firm that could commercialize this equipment. Even though the science and technology was largely done in California. ASML was a company that already made older-generation lithography tools and had the capabilities to turn the science into a mass-manufactured device. That set ASML on the trajectory to where it is today: the only producer in the world of machine tools that can produce EUV light and use it to produce semiconductors.

https://www.theverge.com/23578430/chip-war-chris-miller-asml...

Without Cymer, which ASML acquired in 2013, there would be no EUV, the current state of the art lithography technology. Cymer continues to exist as an independent subsidiary within ASML to this day.

This is a contract between Cymer and Lawrence Livermore Lab to enhance EUV technology:

https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1413999

Granted ASML builds the actual fabrication machine that chip makers can use. We can’t praise their technical expertise enough.

Yeah, now look at the incorporation dates of these companies...

Thats what would a typical brexit guy would say. You might have a point, but at least the companies here care for people

What a bizarre mishmash of regulatory attempts. I wonder how poorly this will age.

The worst part is that they're trying to block the rest of the world from engaging in open source development too, since it's literally impossible for a model to not end up in Europe thanks to the internet.

It's clear Europe doesn't consider itself a serious contender in the AI development race, and they're hobbling themselves right from the start.

I love the foresight of the EU for this.

Can give you some foresight: As a result of having no EU based AI companies, there will soon be a 'strategic' need to have European grown large AI companies, top down from the presidency or member states to large established companies like Orange, SAP. They'll get some Euro as part of the project and years after there will be nothing to show for it.

An old example of one: The homegrown Google search competitor, a newer one: The amazon web services competitor. Only graves remain.

Yes. Pre-emptively killing any possibility of innovation before all the details are known. Big brain move.

And yet they still have the nerve to complain about how technologically behind they are against the US.

What does this realistically mean for these open source tools and models?

It means they put up a firewall blocking all EU access and continue business in the US.

Same with open-source software in general with how that’s going.

It's literally impossible to block Europeans from getting access to these models, since bypassing geographic restrictions is trivial.

Will Github add an option to limit repo access in certain regions?

If this passes, will devs be banned from using GitHub for the development of open source models?

> It's literally impossible to block Europeans from getting access to these models, since bypassing geographic restrictions is trivial

I think that doesn’t matter because the strength of the lock is generally irrelevant legally.

Weak DRM is still a copyright violation to break in the US; and breaking a rusted 50-year-old lock on an item that doesn’t belong to you is still illegal.

I would hope that EU courts would recognize that anyone importing that software gets liability.

Seems similar to the GDPR, which IMO has been a huge success.

I'm sorry that it will hurt your quarter of a million dollar pay checks. Here we value consumer protection and that's how things will stay.

If your perspective so Anglo-centric that you can't interpret EU administrative law then you will do well to stay out of that market.

> then you will do well to stay out of that market.

Agree with you 100%.

I actually do this. I forbid non-U.S. access in my ToS, because I only do business in jurisdictions where I understand the law. Keeping track of 50 states is tricky enough, let alone all the other nations. So if you are in the EU I don’t really do business with you.

But I actually worry this isn’t sufficient. AFAICT the GDPR doesn’t require my consent to engage in a transaction with an EU citizen.

I can ban them in my ToS and they can use my service anyways subjecting me to GDPR. And I don’t understand GDPR well enough to properly implement it (like, don’t I need a registered agent in the EU or something?)

I can block the EU IP block and they can use my service anyways using a VPN, subjecting me to GDPR.

In fact, I’m not sure how to avoid doing business with an EU citizen. I’ve toyed around with putting liability for all damages, fines, and lawsuits on the user in an attempt to pass GDPR fines onto EU users who attempt to use my service without my consent, but I suspect that’s not going to stand.

So not exactly sure what I should do.

Im grateful where I live now does not have GDPR, and i'm saying that as a consumer.

They want to get something like GDPR but more protective to customers.

Would not call GDPR a success - no country wants to really copy GDPR in its current form at all

> If your perspective so Anglo-centric that you can't interpret EU administrative law then you will do well to stay out of that market.

It has always baffled me how popular the sentiment of 'We have to know the LAW to do business in the EU!?' is regarding GDPR in the EU.

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