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Comment by wickedsight | Hacker News Reader

We are in such an insane bind here...

We can see China and the US developing AI tooling (and other tech) at a high speed. One of the reasons for this is the lack of regulation and even active deregulation. In the EU, we won't be able to keep up with this speed because we tend to want to regulate first and many of our regulations hinder gathering the insane amounts of data needed.

Falling behind on AI and not wanting to be dependent on tools from outside the EU will put us at a significant disadvantage in research and production of new technologies and we're already far behind in that aspect.

We also don't want to drop our values just to keep up. Which is partially because we're still in the luxury position of being very rich. I wonder, though, whether we can keep this going in the current state of the world. Things seem to have changed massively in our disadvantage over the past 5 or so years.

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It's not yet clear whether AI is so effective at actual work that it justifies throwing away privacy and even copyright law. But there do seem to still be open models if you think you need one.

It wasn't clear that outsourcing a bunch of infrastructure to the cloud was economically effective, but here we are.

AI is inevitable, for better (open, transparent, self-hostable) or worse (closed, opaque, cloud-only).

I can't take arguments like this seriously. "Something else was successful so AI will be successful!!!!1!"

The vibrations of the hype train of AI feel like a similar frequency to those of the cloud hype train.

Once hype train vibrations reach a certain frequency, the topic they represent become inevitable.

Purely subjective of course, my vibration frequency sensitivity is not your vibration frequency sensitivity.

I would say that it feels as if AI is being 'pushed' far more than cloud was. Cloud services were made available, and companies took them up. AI uptake has a pressure behind it from the big players. Refer anecdote: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44234139

It's a bit VHS vs Betamax, except it's VHS vs No-VHS. Playing on FOMO.

I don't think he meant going to such absolute extremes...

Regulation is good, it keeps actors in line and prevent cheating, but then overregulation comes into the picture and shoots them in the foot while expecting them to compete on the world stage.

Think balance.

> that it justifies throwing away privacy and even copyright law

That's why I wrote that we don't want to do that. But not doing that comes with a risk that we need to be aware of. There's two sides to the coin and we need to look at both before we pick a side.

I don't have an opinion on which side to pick, since I think it's one of the hardest decisions of our time and I value our sovereignty and privacy. I just don't know if we can keep those in the long term if we start lagging behind on a global scale.

Regulation is a complete red herring.

The reason the EU cannot compete in tech, is because its market is way too tight with the US market. Any founder has a choice (if you can raise this insane level of seed capital you have the choice). They could pick US, Canada, UK, France, Germany ...etc. Given that choice, they will pick the US every single time. It's strategically the best choice, simple because of its size and wealth.

It's not just regulation but a lack of cheap energy too.

Europe chose degrowth instead of abundance, now it reaps the whirlwind.

Is this really true though? UK is building new reactors, France has many. Wind and solar are both massive successes across the continent. The North Sea still has oil and significant new LNG storage capacity has recently been built.

Wind and solar have not been a 'massive' success.

And renewables can only get you so far.

Wind/Solar/etc cannot produce fertilizer - arguably the most important use of fossil fuels.

And the EU's land does not produce enough food to support its population without fossil fuel derived fertilizers (requires lots of nat gas). Hence why the EU still imports $billions of Russian fertilizer despite publicly talking tough about Russia.

The EU leaves fossil fuel extraction to other countries and then imports the result while loudly shouting about their own "morality" and sustainability. It's child-like and pure silly-ness. Until the EU starts fracking they will never have independence over anything.

> Wind/Solar/etc cannot produce fertilizer - arguably the most important use of fossil fuels.

You can create ammonia (and thereby nitrogen-based fertilizers which you are probably referring to) from electricity, water and air alone. However, doing it with gas or oil is often cheaper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s44160-023-00362-y

However, the process is very old and proven, see e.g. this historically significant and well-known facility from 1907: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norsk_Hydro_Rjukan

Not only is it far more expensive but Europe is already electricity constrained.

Renewables in Europe simply can’t scale up to meet the need for fertilizers the way nat gas can.

>It's child-like and pure silly-ness.

The EU or your hysterical reply?

I would love to engage a logical rebuttal of why my statements are incorrect.

Apologies for including an ad-hominem insult that triggered you emotionally. I would edit that line if I could.

I think your concern on fertiliser imports is overblown. I find the argument that the EU shouldn't champion & invest in renewables while it also continues to use and import fossil fuels a false dichotomy. The same goes for fracking. I also don't accept the argument that pristine independence in one sector (energy) is a base requirement for overall sovereign independence. For sure, some home grown control over energy is a requirement but we live in an interconnected world and whatever the EU may lack in one area it has more than enough ways and means in other areas to assert its power and achieve its policy goals. It's also quite capable of and not afraid to invest on a large scale when/where it's needed.

> Europe chose degrowth

Through regulation. Regulation is more than just regulation of software. We're also at a disadvantage because of regulation on employee rights, wages and payments in stock options. In the US it's way easier to pay with theoretical money (like options) than actual money. So the start-up scene is way more interesting for young people who work hard and hope to become part of a unicorn to hit it big.

> We can see China and the US developing AI tooling (and other tech) at a high speed. One of the reasons for this is the lack of regulation and even active deregulation. In the EU, we won't be able to keep up with this speed because we tend to want to regulate first and many of our regulations hinder gathering the insane amounts of data needed.

Oh, but the EU didn't just "tend to want to". They already did regulate AI in the most onerous possible way for AI users and producers. They even pride themselves on regulating before everyone else and before even knowing what they are regulating: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/topics/en/article/20230601STO...

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