whew kind of an insane take: When I visit America I'm always left with a feeling that the extremes are just more extreme, if you have a bunch of money you can have an amazing time, if you have 0...
Exemplary
whew kind of an insane take:
"I call this Providerism: the ability to ignore political-economic reality because everything is provided for you, and the underlying mechanics and costs are abstracted away."
When I visit America I'm always left with a feeling that the extremes are just more extreme, if you have a bunch of money you can have an amazing time, if you have 0 money they will literally leave you to smoke crack on the street, live in a tent city, or just die. People take a taxi to the hospital instead of getting charged thousands of dollars for an ambulance trip.
I've seen people living in tents in seattle and portland, I've seen people drinking mouthwash on the street in Boston, because they are hardcore alcoholics. I've seen people smoking crack on the doorsteps of buildings at 1pm in the afternoon in Chicago.
The prevailing mindset is "screw you get mine". Maybe that means they are emboldened to build stuff and do more to get theirs, which creates value and makes the top end more extreme, but also the screw you part means the bottom end is more extreme as well.
I think the writer doesn't really know what they mean when they say "reality political-economic" the political systems are just so different, In the US there is a 2 party deadlock system with mostly conservative/rightwing views (even democrats are globally considered conservative/right), vs a proportional house of representatives in many EU countries with multiple parties forming a gov at any one time. So it isn't like the system is somehow the same, but the EU is doing more hand holding, they are fundamentally structured differently, and for different purposes.
Largely this comes down to our economic ideals of the last 500 years where we measure success not on annual profit, but on annual growth. We are not content to simply exist, for fear of competitive pressure we grow our businesses, we grow or atrophy by market forces.
But this rampant, desperate growth, does not come without consequences, and nowhere are those consequences more stark than in the US.
When I visit Europe I sense people are fundamentally more content to just offer a service and be paid fairly for it, rather than seeking expansion and growth with every transaction.
Personally, I think chasing growth at all costs on a macro scale is why the planet is burning. Since there are no obvious "industrial revolutions" on the horizon to 10x our productivity, we're stagnating, which is at odds with our growth mindsets.
Maybe cracking robotics, AI, and Fusion will lead us into a utopia, but I'm not sure we get there before the planet is burning.
Yeah I feel like the introduction of their piece is probably saying the exact opposite of what they intend to imply with it They seem to want to paint a picture of someone who knows both worlds....
Yeah I feel like the introduction of their piece is probably saying the exact opposite of what they intend to imply with it
I grew up in Europe (mostly Germany, Denmark, Switzerland). I had never even set foot outside the continent until I was 18, when I moved to the United States. I have lived here for 12 years now, with most of that in San Francisco.
They seem to want to paint a picture of someone who knows both worlds. But frankly, it more or less paints a picture of someone who only has known the US in their adult years. Specifically someone who in their early adulthood was very much surrounded by certain Silicon Valley ideals and ways of thinking. While their view of Europe in general likely is very much heavily based on their teenage view of that world.
Self-selection bias. People move from the EU to the US (or the other way) for a reason. I recently watched a YouTube video about an American living in Europe and now the YouTube recommendation...
Self-selection bias. People move from the EU to the US (or the other way) for a reason.
I recently watched a YouTube video about an American living in Europe and now the YouTube recommendation algorithm feeds me those both from Americans in Europe and Europeans in the US. It is exactly what you would expect - they see negatively the country they moved away from and positively the country they moved to.
And more importantly, someone who did well enough to move from the EU to the US, meaning they never were in a situation where the massive shortcomings of the US sociological system affected them....
And more importantly, someone who did well enough to move from the EU to the US, meaning they never were in a situation where the massive shortcomings of the US sociological system affected them. At the same time they only know the EU as a child, so they never had personal exposure to the beneficial parts of a more governed and organized system.
It's a striking demonstration of a lack of care for one's fellow man as well, though. I was able to move from the US to the EU for similar reasons -- I was both lucky and privileged -- but I'd...
It's a striking demonstration of a lack of care for one's fellow man as well, though. I was able to move from the US to the EU for similar reasons -- I was both lucky and privileged -- but I'd still have to deliberately avert my eyes from how much the poor suffer without the social supports available in countries with functional social supports to arrive at a position remotely close to his. But then despite growing up more than comfortably myself, I've still lived with shitty US health insurance that means I can't afford medication or doctor's appointments, which I doubt Mr. Loeber ever has.
This was adressed in the article's comments section:
This was adressed in the article's comments section:
Shaked Koplewitz
Writes shakeddown
Dec 14
I think many of these are good points, but seems to go a bit too far.
Potential issues:
...
(2) Potential viewpoint bias - if you lived in one place until age 18 it'll seem more provider-y because you were a child there (and SV is kind of the opposite extreme in many ways, and not a good baseline for America).
John Loeber
Dec 15
...
(2): acknowledged, but I maintain enough contacts in Europe and go back often enough to have some contemporary perspective. My views are informed by what I currently believe to be the case, not my impressions as a teenager.
He's well off enough in America to 'regularly' travel back to Europe. Of course he's going to think shit is good. His views are formed by being a wealthy American - one who sees regulation and...
My views are informed by what I currently believe to be the case
He's well off enough in America to 'regularly' travel back to Europe. Of course he's going to think shit is good. His views are formed by being a wealthy American - one who sees regulation and social safety nets as unnecessary because he's not going to fail.
This is my experience. The desperation is real. For example, I worked at Target when it expanded to Canada. My boss couldn't figure out why Canadians wouldn't work as hard as the Americans he had...
The prevailing mindset is "screw you get mine". Maybe that means they are emboldened to build stuff and do more to get theirs, which creates value and makes the top end more extreme, but also the screw you part means the bottom end is more extreme as well.
This is my experience. The desperation is real. For example, I worked at Target when it expanded to Canada. My boss couldn't figure out why Canadians wouldn't work as hard as the Americans he had seen for minimum wage.
Nail-> head. This is what I've been thinking for a long time. This contrived dissatisfaction with status quo no matter how great it actually is, is scary. Honestly I hate it and I dream of making...
Largely this comes down to our economic ideals of the last 500 years where we measure success not on annual profit, but on annual growth. We are not content to simply exist, for fear of competitive pressure we grow our businesses, we grow or atrophy by market forces.
Personally, I think chasing growth at all costs on a macro scale is why the planet is burning. Since there are no obvious "industrial revolutions" on the horizon to 10x our productivity, we're stagnating, which is at odds with our growth mindsets.
Nail-> head. This is what I've been thinking for a long time. This contrived dissatisfaction with status quo no matter how great it actually is, is scary. Honestly I hate it and I dream of making a business some day that's about the product, getting by and that's fucking it. No shareholders to pamper and no ever expanding growth potential other than naturally following the development of society.
Interestingly, none of this has to do with regulatory policy, which is the focus of the article. I don't know where people get this from. The only context where it sort of makes sense is that...
When I visit America I'm always left with a feeling that the extremes are just more extreme, if you have a bunch of money you can have an amazing time, if you have 0 money they will literally leave you to smoke crack on the street, live in a tent city, or just die. People take a taxi to the hospital instead of getting charged thousands of dollars for an ambulance trip.
Interestingly, none of this has to do with regulatory policy, which is the focus of the article.
(even democrats are globally considered conservative/right)
I don't know where people get this from. The only context where it sort of makes sense is that they're more reticent on universal healthcare, but on religious freedom, women in the workplace, immigrant and minority rights, environmental policy, and just about every other metric they're routinely along the bleeding edge among actual governing parties around the world.
Is Europe failing to create wealth though? What about that weight loss drug that Americans are paying top dollar for, Novo Nordisk? $2.2 Trillion market cap. Also going to recommend this Foreign...
Exemplary
Is Europe failing to create wealth though?
What about that weight loss drug that Americans are paying top dollar for, Novo Nordisk? $2.2 Trillion market cap.
Also going to recommend this Foreign Policy interview, on the topic of "picking and choosing viewpoints vs a broader and more balanced view": Adam and the interviewer talk about
(1) is it true Europe is lagging
(2) in what ways
(3) how'd that happen, and then
(4) balance and counterpoint , plus
(5) future forecast --- segments 4-5 here are especially relevant for your question, I think:
AT: [...] Because if you look at any ranking of the global corporate hierarchy, top 50, top 500, top 100, top 20 tech firms, Americans dominate, China is second, and the Europeans are lower down. Twenty or 30 years ago, European firms would have been amply and strongly represented up there—the Fiats, the Mercedes-Benzes, the BMWs, the Siemens, you know, those kind of players of the 19th- and 20th-century industrial revolution, all of those have dropped down the hierarchy. And you’re now left with a position where Europe basically has very few significant global players, none in the platform area, two in tech, which would be ASML, the Dutch lithography firm, and SAP, the German software house. But then beyond that, there’s really nothing there. Europe has really, really lost ground very dramatically here.
But it’s worth saying again: It’s selective, right? So if you look at areas where the European state has actually been quite proactive in supporting businesses, the story is much more mixed. So, classically, aerospace, right? If you think about commercial airliners, there are two companies in the world, and Airbus, the European one, is currently really winning over Boeing quite heavily, despite Boeing’s backing from the American military-industrial complex. That’s the result of European industrial policy. Pharmaceuticals is the same way. If you think about the vaccine race during COVID, Pfizer makes one of the vaccines, but it’s largely based on technology that came from Europe, and the AstraZeneca vaccine, a European production. It was cheap and effective and worked quite well, too. If you think about 5G, for all of the American campaigning against Huawei and the Chinese, they ended up relying on two European firms, Ericsson and Nokia, to actually supply the kit.
So it’s a balance, [...] the question is how does this play out going forward? And is there any way for Europe to make up lost ground? And this is where, then, I think the energy transition does become quite critical because in areas like offshore wind, for instance, America basically has zero firms that can do it, none of the equipment to do offshore wind farms, whereas in Europe, this is already a major going concern and the game is going to be played out between the Europeans and the Chinese. The question going forward is, are the Europeans going to be willing to take the gloves off and play an industrial policy game like the Chinese and the Americans increasingly are? What’s the price for doing that?
This is great! I think that answers my concerns really well. I guess in some ways it really does depend on the sectors being compared. The energy tech is a really good one, same with biotech, as I...
This is great! I think that answers my concerns really well. I guess in some ways it really does depend on the sectors being compared. The energy tech is a really good one, same with biotech, as I would expect they become more and more relevant in the future, even compared to AI-based and adjacent tech.
And now my personal response on the article. As a tech lay-person1, perhaps I am only fit to comment on the writing itself. The posted article's entire premise hinges upon this thesis: "Europe is...
And now my personal response on the article.
As a tech lay-person1, perhaps I am only fit to comment on the writing itself.
The posted article's entire premise hinges upon this thesis: "Europe is a macro-consumer: virtually everything of value comes from elsewhere" -- And then to back up this claim, the author has this to say:
The argument for this is tangential to the main point, so I’ve relegated it to the footnotes
!!! For everyone wanting to read this piece to see if his titular premise is correct, save your time! The writer considers his own premise to be self-evident to the point that supports are tangential and a mere footnote.
This is not how one writes an argumentative piece. The author was probably so outraged by the AI regulation that he wanted to rush ahead with his future prediction and his own person take on how to save the EU, before he even spends any time researching his own arguments. A more reflective writer would first examine his/her own thesis as a hypothesis, then conduct research to see if he/she is right or wrong, and then perhaps change his mind, or at least present a more nuanced argument with a smaller, better fitted scope. Eg, "in terms of consumer facing software tech, the EU is behind" or "AI regulation bad", rather than "EU bad".
Instead, we are treated to a single context-less graph from Financial Times, and that when he was a child, he hadn't "met people who make stuff." Sad news for his family who made time for him, the European farmers who grew at least some of his food, the social safety net that made his town safe, and the policy makers who enabled him and his family to immigrate to Silicone Valley, where I suppose they create all of the only things in life worth anything to him.
1 tech layperson : ...well, outdated to the point of being virtually a lay person now. I had been a programmer once. I had only learned about what a petabyte is last week. Gonna need a lot of help from y'all when I go back to school for compsci this year.....
Silicon Valley types have a weird victim complex when it comes to EU regulation. I don't want to suggest all of their concerns are imaginary -- it's certainly worth asking why the EU doesn't have...
Silicon Valley types have a weird victim complex when it comes to EU regulation. I don't want to suggest all of their concerns are imaginary -- it's certainly worth asking why the EU doesn't have a Google or Apple equivalent -- but on the other hand, I think they're more worried about ~vibes~ than actual laws.
For example, take this recent submission to HN ("EU opens proceedings against X over efforts to combat information manipulation"). I mean, most people here would probably think, No shit, misinformation spews from X like fire from hell, but instead the majority of the comment section is full of unsubstantiated allegations of impropriety by EU actors.
I was kind of done with the article when I clicked on one of the standard "source" annotations, only to be met with more of his uninformed opinions. Instead of, you know, an actual source.
I was kind of done with the article when I clicked on one of the standard "source" annotations, only to be met with more of his uninformed opinions. Instead of, you know, an actual source.
Even tech though. Yeah there's no ubers, or googles, but what about standards and tech you're using to this day? Before I make the argument I must preface this by saying that in a globalized world...
Even tech though. Yeah there's no ubers, or googles, but what about standards and tech you're using to this day?
Before I make the argument I must preface this by saying that in a globalized world such as this one, saying "x technology is from y place" is somewhat simplifying it. People from everywhere worked on 20th and 21st century tech.
That said, what about European developed Bluetooth? A standard most people use daily, if not constantly.
The World Wide Web was developed by the Swiss CERN (to further illustrate my point above: using DARPA's ARPANET tech as the base).
The creator of the VIM text editor was Dutch.
And really, I could go on for a while. Fact of the matter is, is that Europe doesn't need Silicon Valley-esque mega-corps to be on the forefront of technological development. It's fairly American to assume that the only way to be a pioneer is to rake in oodles of cash, when it couldn't be further from the truth.
Even so, I do think the European Union is strong enough to pave the way for their own healthy tech sector that doesn't rely on US corporations and websites. The entire Twitter debacle got authorities all rattled and so much ended up moving away from Twitter to self-hosted Mastodon instances (Like firefighters, police, municipalities, parts of the government, etc). Clearly any regulations forced upon these corporations are taken in stride, the EU is too big to ignore as a customer base, so why shouldn't the EU foster their own?
I'm not an economist and have limited knowledge on many of the subjects that this article touch, but this lengthy text can really be summarized in a single line: "deregulation is good, socialism...
I'm not an economist and have limited knowledge on many of the subjects that this article touch, but this lengthy text can really be summarized in a single line: "deregulation is good, socialism is bad".
Like, ok, we can agree that the USA dominate the tech world mostly thanks of a lack of regulation, but.. damn, I feel like I read some USA fanfic. That's some impressively narrow point of view.
But does the regulation make any sense? I was taken aback by this: Not to mention clauses in the regulation like: It does seem rather toothless and unhelpful. The product of busywork rather than...
But does the regulation make any sense? I was taken aback by this:
Obedient, rule-following entrepreneurs will waste all their time and money trying to comply with every paragraph of the AI Act. More Realpolitik-minded entrepreneurs will position their business such that it’s in a gray area, assume that if they’re successful, they’ll get sued one day, and save some funds for that eventuality.
And if they get sued, what are the penalties? Up to 7% of global annual turnover. This is a farce. If the EU’s contention is that this technology is so dangerous that it requires EU-wide regulation, then the penalties should actually be a lot higher. If there’s a bad actor running a massively abusive AI business, and the biggest threat they face is a 7% revenue penalty that they can probably knock down to 2% after a few years of litigation — then that’s no deterrent at all!
Not to mention clauses in the regulation like:
“AI systems that manipulate human behavior to circumvent their free will.”
It does seem rather toothless and unhelpful. The product of busywork rather than anything thoughtful and well informed. FWIW, I would 100% support harsher penalties for more serious offenses.
It's a fundamental misunderstanding of simple law that's really common in Americans. We do not want to put people in prison. We create a narrow set of laws and we say "This stuff, this is so far...
It's a fundamental misunderstanding of simple law that's really common in Americans.
We do not want to put people in prison. We create a narrow set of laws and we say "This stuff, this is so far beyond the norms of acceptable behaviour that we're going to send you to prison if you do it". But that does not mean that anything else is fine! It does not mean that anything else is acceptable! We have social norms, and we enforce those with codes of ethics and morality, and those kick in quite a long way before the law gets involved.
The punishment is not the deterrent. The deterrent is that it's illegal.
Why don't you steal? Your neighbour's house is right there - why don't you just wait until they're out and then kick a window in and rob them? It's not, I hope, because you don't want to go to prison if you get caught. It is, I hope, because you're not the kind of person who burglarises houses.
But also, in what world is "Hey boss, I did a thing that just lost the company 7% of annual revenue" the kind of convo anyone wants to have?
I think generally, people in the USA are more consequence-minded than civics-minded. They don't want to get in trouble, they don't want to get arrested, they don't want to get embarrassed. There...
Why don't you steal? Your neighbour's house is right there - why don't you just wait until they're out and then kick a window in and rob them? It's not, I hope, because you don't want to go to prison if you get caught. It is, I hope, because you're not the kind of person who burglarises houses.
I think generally, people in the USA are more consequence-minded than civics-minded. They don't want to get in trouble, they don't want to get arrested, they don't want to get embarrassed. There isn't much thought towards the more top-level concept that to have a functioning society we all need to look out for each other and do what we can to protect each other. That we need to follow rules because we believe in them, not because we have to. I've lived in a couple of places where it was more common, but I'd say as a whole, it's not something the average American thinks about.
It’s super reductive to think that people have no ethical compass, and that they will turn immediately to crime given the opportunity. I’m not saying it’s not true, but I wish the law wasn’t the...
It’s super reductive to think that people have no ethical compass, and that they will turn immediately to crime given the opportunity. I’m not saying it’s not true, but I wish the law wasn’t the only thing holding people back from harming others (and sometimes not even that is enough). We need a cultural shift back toward morality, especially in the absence of religion and nationalism, because there are better ways to establish a foundation of morality that don’t cause such collateral damage. All these institutions fail to address the root cause of our unhappiness. Giving people a basic decent living is probably why we see less of this violence in Europe imo, not gun laws, not any laws except those that regulate corporations out of keeping people on the streets from their own greed.
I didn't mean to imply that us Americans have no ethical compass, just that on average we don't prioritize it when making decisions. I would love a shift towards people considering large scale...
I didn't mean to imply that us Americans have no ethical compass, just that on average we don't prioritize it when making decisions. I would love a shift towards people considering large scale compassion, a focus on doing the right thing for its own sake and not for religion or legality. Addressing concerns about basic economic stability and education would do wonders for us as a people, but there is so much working against these changes.
I believe that for many Americans, the reason for this is that they feel they can’t afford to prioritize their ethical compass. Especially for the working class, opportunities to meaningfully get...
I didn't mean to imply that us Americans have no ethical compass, just that on average we don't prioritize it when making decisions.
I believe that for many Americans, the reason for this is that they feel they can’t afford to prioritize their ethical compass. Especially for the working class, opportunities to meaningfully get ahead are not only rare, but continue to grow more rare with time, and while doing the right thing feels good it often does nothing to keep a roof over one’s head or to achieve or bolster long-term financial security.
Of course, the US has a long history of being driven by capitalists mostly interested in furthering themselves which has no doubt been a massive influence on its culture, but scarcity of opportunity reinforces that behavior and pushes people who’d under more prosperous conditions put ethics ahead of personal benefit to do otherwise.
I don’t think that was implied by your original comment but it brought up thoughts of how people tend to justify a somewhat broken system duct-taping our society in place.
I don’t think that was implied by your original comment but it brought up thoughts of how people tend to justify a somewhat broken system duct-taping our society in place.
to be fair, there was an entire movie about that concept. A very crass one not at all rooted in reality, but I'm sure many have those kinds of intrusive thoughts. I've seen enough looting during...
It’s super reductive to think that people have no ethical compass, and that they will turn immediately to crime given the opportunity.
to be fair, there was an entire movie about that concept. A very crass one not at all rooted in reality, but I'm sure many have those kinds of intrusive thoughts. I've seen enough looting during otherwise noble riots and protests to know that there is a decent amount of ethical quandaries quashed by the consequences of getting caught, waiting for the right time and place.
Giving people a basic decent living is probably why we see less of this violence in Europe imo, not gun laws, not any laws except those that regulate corporations out of keeping people on the streets from their own greed.
I think it's a mix of both. civil unrest + easy access to firearms = much innocent blood spilt. Firearms aren't the cause of the unrest but a force multiplier on harm done due to that.
I think the application of existing norms or the government trying to create new norms by preempting situations with laws is exactly what the author is arguing against. Feeling deterred from doing...
We have social norms, and we enforce those with codes of ethics and morality, and those kick in quite a long way before the law gets involved.
I think the application of existing norms or the government trying to create new norms by preempting situations with laws is exactly what the author is arguing against. Feeling deterred from doing innovative things because of these norms ostensibly holds back innovation.
"Hey boss, I did a thing that just lost the company 7% of annual revenue" the kind of convo anyone wants to have?
The difference in thinking is that in some places (like the SF tech scene the author is in), this is exactly the kind of conversation people want to be having. If you're able to double the size of the company and only lose 7% of revenue to fines, that would be a win. If your company gets to the point where the government is thinking of levying fines against you, that means you pushed the envelope as far as you could. This may or may not be slightly hyperbolic, people probably aren't specifically looking to skirt the law, but they are always trying to find some kind of angle or advantage, which tends to exist at the margins.
Whether this kind of dedication to growth is a good thing or a bad thing is certainly debatable. I'm not sure the morality of advancing AI tech can be compared to a subject with a long history of known consequences like burglary. The author seems to think pushing growth of AI tech a good thing. I think that we should remain somewhat cautious about the possible side effects of this innovation, so some regulation may be needed. However, if the regulation is overly restrictive, the development will still happen, just elsewhere.
For good reason, as history serves. Tech is certainly in its own bubble where most websites won't cost human lives, but this sort of regulation comes from history in medicine, engineering,...
Feeling deterred from doing innovative things because of these norms ostensibly holds back innovation.
For good reason, as history serves. Tech is certainly in its own bubble where most websites won't cost human lives, but this sort of regulation comes from history in medicine, engineering, transportation, and many other sectors where you can't just "send it out on beta". We're seeing direct consequences of that "fail fast" mentality as tech dives into fields likes self-driving cars. Thankfully that is one aspect where the governments around the country did in fact regulate fast.
However, if the regulation is overly restrictive, the development will still happen, just elsewhere.
Sure, but I don't see that as a bad thing, not in the modern world where things are so globalized. It's not like if China makes the "perfect AI" first that suddenly the US/EU can no longer compete.
Not to say that it's less bad when chinese people suffer, but I as an individual have basically zero voice over there in any way shape or form. At least there are good parts of the EU that speak english and can be talked with.
Hot take inbound: The US is good at growing wealth, Europe is good at providing essentials. It's better to be poor or middle class in Europe, it's better to be rich in the US. It's easier to...
Exemplary
Hot take inbound: The US is good at growing wealth, Europe is good at providing essentials. It's better to be poor or middle class in Europe, it's better to be rich in the US. It's easier to become rich in the US, but it's still rather unlikely.
My hairbrained theory is that the wealthy of Europe (read nobility) have a much longer memory than the wealthy of the US; same for the working class (lumping in anyone who "labors"). In Europe there was been a long history of turmoil, and through that, a lot of "experiments" have taken place. What are the components and requirements for a revolution? A lack of food (let them eat cake!) or a lack of shelter (Springtime of the Peoples)? I think the oligarchy of Europe has found the formula, as long as folks have food and shelter they are generally fine. Now stir into the mix that healthy people work more and work better and you have the addition of healthcare. The makings of a stable society. In Europe there are many things that work worse than the US, but their baseline for existence is much higher.
Domestically, we don't have that long memory. We tend to follow the thinking of the Carnegies and Rockefellers and Gettys. Innovate quickly, push for every additional possible dollar, and dispose of anything unnecessary. I think that is still the mindset we have if you look at the "innovators" or capitalists of today. And because of that mindset I think we do see much more explosive wealth, which is good for those projected by the blast, but bad for those standing on the launchpad. Uber was great for the early employees and investors, but horrible for the working rights for millions of Americans (which you and I subsidize through state and federal healthcare programs).
So yes, the US is better than Europe at creating wealth. But Europe has a controlled and reasonable growth, where as the US is seeing unstable, explosive growth. Growth that is not beneficial to the vast majority of it's citizens.
I like this take. I also, in some sort of abstract sense, appreciate that there exists a country that takes those risks and pushes the boundaries, as the best things to come out of that...
I like this take. I also, in some sort of abstract sense, appreciate that there exists a country that takes those risks and pushes the boundaries, as the best things to come out of that experimentation may benefit everyone.
I honestly can't engage critically with this article. Is it because he phrases it as if europeans produce nothing, and only consume? Disregard the 6.2 trillion EUR worth of sold industrial...
I honestly can't engage critically with this article. Is it because he phrases it as if europeans produce nothing, and only consume? Disregard the 6.2 trillion EUR worth of sold industrial production for 2022. I guess at this point we also have to disregard the fact that the EU is a net exporter...
Or maybe it's due to how human beings are supposedly only worth knowing if they are good units of production? I honestly couldn't give a crap if my friends or acquaintances "make stuff". I determine their worth based on (perhaps) outdated concepts, such as: are they good people? Do they treat others right?
Sarcasm aside, we could use a lot more judgement worldwide, and perhaps stop innovating for the sake of "innovating" (read: profiting). Also, I don't recall any average person generating any demand for AI. Average people want safety, good food, good company, free time and purpose.
If AI is really being pushed down our throats, we might as well legislate it from the start and avoid some headaches. Just as how I choose what goes in my body, how I spend my time, what I spend my money on - so should we, collectively, decide if and how we want these technological innovations forced into our lives.
I want this legislation. I don't care about inventing the next iPhone. I don't want to become a capitalist bro. My life is more than producing plastic/code junk.
being a good person doesn't mean you get to keep good company around you, sadly. World is working people out of too much of their time just to survive, and some people barely even want to engage...
I determine their worth based on (perhaps) outdated concepts, such as: are they good people? Do they treat others right?
being a good person doesn't mean you get to keep good company around you, sadly. World is working people out of too much of their time just to survive, and some people barely even want to engage with anyone outside their immediate family once you're at the marriage step. No good deed, and world's getting lonlier.
Also, I don't recall any average person generating any demand for AI. Average people want safety, good food, good company, free time and purpose.
thing is many American's do have this stuff (except perhaps free time), and that's what the "innovators" target. Or in this case, innovators target companies who can then use this to sell more widgets to consumers.
It's very true that the ones who don't have suffering comparable to 3rd world countries, but the "average person" does share a bit of blame here for legislation that sometimes directly reduces the funding needed for such safety nets. I don't think that cultural apathy is something reserved for only the elite.
I'm sorry, but you can't honestly claim that Americans have good food, when 57% of the caloric intake in the US comes from ultra-processed foods And based on the very (very) small amount of...
I'm sorry, but you can't honestly claim that Americans have good food, when 57% of the caloric intake in the US comes from ultra-processed foods
And based on the very (very) small amount of American news that I am exposed to, I somehow doubt that they get the other important things either.
America is the melting pot, of course we have good food, no matter your culture. Now, 1) can Americans afford the good stuff? 2) do americas consume a bunch of ultra processes stuff in addition to...
America is the melting pot, of course we have good food, no matter your culture.
Now, 1) can Americans afford the good stuff? 2) do americas consume a bunch of ultra processes stuff in addition to good food? These are where that study you linked start to come into effect. But it's not like it's physically impossible to eat well (in quality of taste or health).
And based on the very (very) small amount of American news that I am exposed to, I somehow doubt that they get the other important things either.
Well, America is very divided right now in multiple angles, so the answer to your questions can be yes or no, to all or none of these aspects. It really depends on your socioeconomic background. You can live very well in America or live like you're in a third world country, even when sampling the exact same town.
I was answering more from my personal socio-economic perspective of lower-middle to middle class life.
If "individual wealth" is the only metric that matters, sure, maybe Europe is lagging behind the US... But is it? Americans themselves don't think they 'create' anything anymore. China and Mexico...
If "individual wealth" is the only metric that matters, sure, maybe Europe is lagging behind the US...
But is it? Americans themselves don't think they 'create' anything anymore. China and Mexico 'create' most of that wealth for American individuals. The line about iPads particularly... No European computers? Because the ZX Spectrum was famously American, right? The American games industry as we know it would likely be dead without an infusion of European and Japanese efforts. What about American media, like Netflix's hit show "The Witcher" (totally not Polish) or NBC's "The Office" (totally different from The Office... Hell, even 95's Office was derivative of another UK work)? What about cars? Even Dodge is owned by the Europeans now, one of the Big Three American automakers.
What I'm getting at here is that this is looking at a tiny snapshot of a given moment and claiming American exceptionalism. Rome fell at one point too.
I moved from America to the EU a few years ago for a variety of reasons, namely the quality of life and culture, and I haven't looked back. But I'm also in the tech sector and this article worries...
How fitting: the European Commission assembled around an iPad. On the back, in fine print, it will read: Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in China. There is no European iPad. There is no European computer. There is no European search engine. There are only European consumers, to whom things are quasi-magically provided, and so they regulate the providing and consumption of those things.
The European Union is so deep in Providerism that it does not recognize how far removed it is from the production of things of value. This myopia is a great peril for the citizens of Europe.
Europe is falling behind. It largely missed the internet and personal computing booms, and now it sits in danger of missing the coming AI boom. Today’s Europeans are not yet poor — they are still living off the prosperity created by prior generations, and that enables their passive consumption7 — but tomorrow’s Europeans may be.
I moved from America to the EU a few years ago for a variety of reasons, namely the quality of life and culture, and I haven't looked back. But I'm also in the tech sector and this article worries me a bit. I'm not sure how accurate of a portrayal it is since I lack the breadth of knowledge to judge. I'm not an entrepreneur per se but adjacent, and I'm not sure how to act moving forward for my long term future.
I am no expert either but based on the limited knowledge I do have, the article seems based on cherry-picking data points that support a pre-selected narrative and ignoring the rest. You can...
Exemplary
I'm not sure how accurate of a portrayal it is since I lack the breadth of knowledge to judge.
I am no expert either but based on the limited knowledge I do have, the article seems based on cherry-picking data points that support a pre-selected narrative and ignoring the rest. You can "support" any narrative by doing that.
You say you live in the EU - have you not seen any of those popular articles or YouTube videos about how Europe is basically on the verge of collapse, flooded by Muslim immigrants, native Europeans running away, no-go zones, terror, rape, gang violence... And have you seen anything like that around you, where you live? There is a simple way to create a narrative like that - you take some problem that actually exists in some specific place, exaggerate it, generalize it from one location to the whole EU (conveniently ignoring all other data points that go counter to your narrative) and voila, you have a catastrophic article or video that will certainly attract attention.
I think the article we are discussing here is constructed in a similar manner. That iPad example is illustrative - sure, Apple is an American company. But it's not like they produce iPads in the US. I don't know the specific details about iPad but these products are extremely complex and it's not like Europeans do not have anything to do with it - like, isn't ASML (=bleeding-edge chips), a Dutch company? And TSMC is not European, but it is not American either. I could easily construct a similar article about the US lagging behind (and not that I have not seen articles like that).
And more generally speaking, it's not like some of the most advanced tech is not produced in Europe. Sure, a lot of the final products come from China... but the precise machinery they use still comes mostly from Europe, etc.
Sure, but that is a universally-applicable narrative, especially to any Western state. The AI regulation is a new one and the closest analogy I can use to understand it is the GDPR, which I think...
have you not seen any of those popular articles or YouTube videos about how Europe is basically on the verge of collapse, flooded by Muslim immigrants, native Europeans running away, no-go zones, terror, rape, gang violence...
Sure, but that is a universally-applicable narrative, especially to any Western state. The AI regulation is a new one and the closest analogy I can use to understand it is the GDPR, which I think is a net positive but has also many, many shortcomings and annoyances.
I was more so looking for a perspective from those in the industry tech space, who would be more directly affected by this regulation and would be re-maneuvering around it in the short term.
A lot of the relevant regulations are quite new, but as someone working in Europe as a data scientist and keeping an eye on jobs in the field in relevant cities, I'm not particularly worried....
A lot of the relevant regulations are quite new, but as someone working in Europe as a data scientist and keeping an eye on jobs in the field in relevant cities, I'm not particularly worried. There are plenty of tech companies that are using AI in the exact same way most US tech companies are, outside the truly massive players. There are even domains where European companies dominate; DeepL absolutely crushes even Google translate at any language it's available for afaik (certainly at the ones I speak), despite being a (relatively) small German company.
The personal computing booms?! The ZX Spectrum, BBC Micro and Raspberry Pi are all European, specifically British inventions. Almost every phone or tablet in the world uses ARM chips designed by...
The personal computing booms?! The ZX Spectrum, BBC Micro and Raspberry Pi are all European, specifically British inventions. Almost every phone or tablet in the world uses ARM chips designed by Arm Holdings, a British company who are descended from Acorn Computers, who created the BBC Micro, the Archimedes PC, and RISC OS.
The concept of an internet might be American through its development at DARPA. However, the World Wide Web, HTTP, URL's, and HTML were designed by Tim Berners-Lee, a British Computer Scientist, at CERN, a European intergovernmental research facility which is, to this day, still researching cutting edge physics via the Large Hadron Collider.
This author doesn't know what he's talking about, I can smell a Silicon Valley tech bro a mile away.
No single KPI will capture the whole picture, but everything generally points in the direction that the author was saying. The largest tech market by far is the US, next is probably China, and...
No single KPI will capture the whole picture, but everything generally points in the direction that the author was saying. The largest tech market by far is the US, next is probably China, and Europe is essentially not participating. It's so obviously true that the author didn't feel a need to labor the point.
Some metrics you can look at - total venture funding, market cap of listed tech companies, employees in the industry, quality of listed tech companies (growth, margins) etc. Arguably the only world class listed European tech company is ASML (which listens to the US anyway - see the China chip sanctions). Less specific to tech - look at GDP/capita charts for Western Europe vs US, which tracked closely until 2008 when the US broke off and just kept grinding up vs Europe which has stagnated.
The fundamentals are pretty poor for Europe. It's harder for companies to get funding (less capital + risk appetite) and harder for startups to succeed (regulation, EU more fragmented, loss averse mentality). So the rare European successes tend to move to the US anyway, either by choice (Spotify) or acquisition (DeepMind, ARM).
ARM are still based in the UK as far as I'm aware, they were acquired by SoftBank, a Japanese conglomerate, but retained their HQ in Cambridge. There was an attempt by Nvidia to purchase ARM from...
ARM are still based in the UK as far as I'm aware, they were acquired by SoftBank, a Japanese conglomerate, but retained their HQ in Cambridge.
There was an attempt by Nvidia to purchase ARM from SoftBank but it was squashed by regulatory pressure from a number of bodies, one of whom was the UK Government due to a worry about national security concerns so they've not gone anywhere and are still a UK based and headquartered company.
Arm is not really as UK as you think: Management: CEO/CFO are both American now, and the chair (Masa) is Japanese. The CEO is based in Silicon Valley Listing: shares are listed on NASDAQ (US) and...
Arm is not really as UK as you think:
Management: CEO/CFO are both American now, and the chair (Masa) is Japanese. The CEO is based in Silicon Valley
Listing: shares are listed on NASDAQ (US) and a UK dual listing was rejected despite (desperate) UK govt overtures
Ownership: Softbank owns ~90%. The remaining float is 92% US according to Bloomberg (2.2% UK)
Employees: UK is largest (47%), but coming down (50% 2y prior), see the F-1
HQ: still Cambridge... but I wouldn't be comfortable betting that's still true 10y later. Softbank likely made commitments in 2016 but they won't own it forever
Interesting article, though it does come off a bit doomer-ist to me. I do feel like the comparisons between the US and Europe here aren’t the most fair on Europe. Some of the comparisons they make...
Interesting article, though it does come off a bit doomer-ist to me. I do feel like the comparisons between the US and Europe here aren’t the most fair on Europe. Some of the comparisons they make are more sort of Silicon Valley vs Europe and they make it out to be like that’s the whole US vs Europe.
That being said, the author’s point about the EU being a consumer rather than a producer really stood out to me because it’s something I didn’t think about much myself either and I find myself agreeing with it, at least when it comes to tech. Looking in from the outside, the EU has dug itself into a bit of a hole by relying heavily on the American and Asian tech sectors. They consume a lot more from our tech companies than they seem to put in and then try to control how they work. With all these extra regulations, the American and Asian companies could simply choose not to do business in Europe anymore, effectively disconnecting them from the rest of the world. Like the author mentioned, there’s no European computer or mobile devices. Most computers/mobile phones are built by American or Asian companies and use American and Asian software. Realistically, these companies wouldn’t pull out of such a huge market but it’s interesting to think about what could happen if they do.
I do think that Europe would very much benefit from fostering its own tech sector and insert itself among American and Asian sectors. However, this is going to be a monumental task. The EU is still a bunch of separate nations, each with their own goals and pride. The United States is lucky that there is a unifying “American” identity to bring together all 300 million of us. There’d need to be a powerful unifying “European” identity in order to bring the 400 million citizens of the EU member nations together to develop a sector as powerful as the US in my opinion.
I don't think they could. EU is a huge market and even China cannot afford to just cut the EU off. It could cause big problems for them. And I mean like significant layoffs and economic downtun,...
With all these extra regulations, the American and Asian companies could simply choose not to do business in Europe anymore, effectively disconnecting them from the rest of the world.
I don't think they could. EU is a huge market and even China cannot afford to just cut the EU off. It could cause big problems for them. And I mean like significant layoffs and economic downtun, instability and societal unrest kind of problems.
Also, maybe you underestimate how mutually dependent we are in this world? We (EU) depend on China a lot (and personally, I think we should not)... but they also depend on us. There are whole areas where they use precise machinery from Germany, Italy, etc. to produce - and if some "cutting off" occurred, there would probably be some kind of retaliation.
Again, I am not an expert, so take all of this with a grain of salt, but AFAIK China still cannot handle for example the most advanced chip-making technology they will need for AI growth (or for advanced military stuff). I am sure they are trying to rectify that but now they still depend on ASML - or at least they did until recently - have the US succeeded in pressuring them to cut China off? It is hard to keep track lately.
Oh yeah I wasn't suggesting that the US even has the power or should for any reason even think of cutting off Europe from our tech. Like you mentioned, the world is an interconnected place with...
Oh yeah I wasn't suggesting that the US even has the power or should for any reason even think of cutting off Europe from our tech. Like you mentioned, the world is an interconnected place with countries mutually depending on each other. The EU countries are some of our biggest allies so cutting them off from our tech would be a stupid decision.
Yep, I know, I was talking mostly about China, because, unlike the US, China could have additional motivation on top of that regulation stuff to cut us off. With international relationships...
I wasn't suggesting that the US even has the power or should for any reason even think of cutting off Europe from our tech.
Yep, I know, I was talking mostly about China, because, unlike the US, China could have additional motivation on top of that regulation stuff to cut us off. With international relationships shaping the way they are shaping lately, some form of decoupling will probably actually occur. Let's not forget that this is not just about money, it is also a geopolitical game. I am no expert in this either, but I have read a few really interesting articles about this (decoupling and friendshoring policies) written by Noahpinion: https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/stop-saying-there-is-no-decoupling
Other people addressed the problems with the economic comparison. I want to put in a good word for regulating at the application level. I think it would be hard to come up with general principles...
Other people addressed the problems with the economic comparison. I want to put in a good word for regulating at the application level. I think it would be hard to come up with general principles that would regulate driverless cars without writing regulations specific to driverless cars, or at least cars?
I don’t know enough about the EU’s new AI regulations to have an opinion, though.
I do think it's worth making the distinction that a lot of US companies aren't creating wealth, they're extracting it from the working class to further enrich the wealthy. You see this in the...
I do think it's worth making the distinction that a lot of US companies aren't creating wealth, they're extracting it from the working class to further enrich the wealthy. You see this in the health insurance industry, where the US spends double per capita as other developed nations but has worse healthcare for huge amounts of people.
You also see it in Silicon Valley. The "innovation" the first wave of SV companies was extracting huge amounts of personal data to try and make better ads (Google, Facebook, etc.), turning personal privacy into a resource that could be destroyed for profit like never before. The "innovation" of the second wave was externalizing the cost of equipment necessary to operate the business onto employees (Uber, AirBNB, etc.). And while there were some genuine technical innovations that went along with it, I'm not exactly going to be jazzed that someone's robbing me with a gun instead of a pointy stick, even though it represents significant technical progress, you know?
whew kind of an insane take:
When I visit America I'm always left with a feeling that the extremes are just more extreme, if you have a bunch of money you can have an amazing time, if you have 0 money they will literally leave you to smoke crack on the street, live in a tent city, or just die. People take a taxi to the hospital instead of getting charged thousands of dollars for an ambulance trip.
I've seen people living in tents in seattle and portland, I've seen people drinking mouthwash on the street in Boston, because they are hardcore alcoholics. I've seen people smoking crack on the doorsteps of buildings at 1pm in the afternoon in Chicago.
The prevailing mindset is "screw you get mine". Maybe that means they are emboldened to build stuff and do more to get theirs, which creates value and makes the top end more extreme, but also the screw you part means the bottom end is more extreme as well.
I think the writer doesn't really know what they mean when they say "reality political-economic" the political systems are just so different, In the US there is a 2 party deadlock system with mostly conservative/rightwing views (even democrats are globally considered conservative/right), vs a proportional house of representatives in many EU countries with multiple parties forming a gov at any one time. So it isn't like the system is somehow the same, but the EU is doing more hand holding, they are fundamentally structured differently, and for different purposes.
Largely this comes down to our economic ideals of the last 500 years where we measure success not on annual profit, but on annual growth. We are not content to simply exist, for fear of competitive pressure we grow our businesses, we grow or atrophy by market forces.
But this rampant, desperate growth, does not come without consequences, and nowhere are those consequences more stark than in the US.
When I visit Europe I sense people are fundamentally more content to just offer a service and be paid fairly for it, rather than seeking expansion and growth with every transaction.
Personally, I think chasing growth at all costs on a macro scale is why the planet is burning. Since there are no obvious "industrial revolutions" on the horizon to 10x our productivity, we're stagnating, which is at odds with our growth mindsets.
Maybe cracking robotics, AI, and Fusion will lead us into a utopia, but I'm not sure we get there before the planet is burning.
Yeah I feel like the introduction of their piece is probably saying the exact opposite of what they intend to imply with it
They seem to want to paint a picture of someone who knows both worlds. But frankly, it more or less paints a picture of someone who only has known the US in their adult years. Specifically someone who in their early adulthood was very much surrounded by certain Silicon Valley ideals and ways of thinking. While their view of Europe in general likely is very much heavily based on their teenage view of that world.
Self-selection bias. People move from the EU to the US (or the other way) for a reason.
I recently watched a YouTube video about an American living in Europe and now the YouTube recommendation algorithm feeds me those both from Americans in Europe and Europeans in the US. It is exactly what you would expect - they see negatively the country they moved away from and positively the country they moved to.
And more importantly, someone who did well enough to move from the EU to the US, meaning they never were in a situation where the massive shortcomings of the US sociological system affected them. At the same time they only know the EU as a child, so they never had personal exposure to the beneficial parts of a more governed and organized system.
It's a striking demonstration of a lack of care for one's fellow man as well, though. I was able to move from the US to the EU for similar reasons -- I was both lucky and privileged -- but I'd still have to deliberately avert my eyes from how much the poor suffer without the social supports available in countries with functional social supports to arrive at a position remotely close to his. But then despite growing up more than comfortably myself, I've still lived with shitty US health insurance that means I can't afford medication or doctor's appointments, which I doubt Mr. Loeber ever has.
This was adressed in the article's comments section:
He's well off enough in America to 'regularly' travel back to Europe. Of course he's going to think shit is good. His views are formed by being a wealthy American - one who sees regulation and social safety nets as unnecessary because he's not going to fail.
Maintaining contact and going back every so often is different from actually living there as an adult.
This is my experience. The desperation is real. For example, I worked at Target when it expanded to Canada. My boss couldn't figure out why Canadians wouldn't work as hard as the Americans he had seen for minimum wage.
Nail-> head. This is what I've been thinking for a long time. This contrived dissatisfaction with status quo no matter how great it actually is, is scary. Honestly I hate it and I dream of making a business some day that's about the product, getting by and that's fucking it. No shareholders to pamper and no ever expanding growth potential other than naturally following the development of society.
Interestingly, none of this has to do with regulatory policy, which is the focus of the article.
I don't know where people get this from. The only context where it sort of makes sense is that they're more reticent on universal healthcare, but on religious freedom, women in the workplace, immigrant and minority rights, environmental policy, and just about every other metric they're routinely along the bleeding edge among actual governing parties around the world.
Is Europe failing to create wealth though?
What about that weight loss drug that Americans are paying top dollar for, Novo Nordisk? $2.2 Trillion market cap.
Also going to recommend this Foreign Policy interview, on the topic of "picking and choosing viewpoints vs a broader and more balanced view": Adam and the interviewer talk about
(1) is it true Europe is lagging
(2) in what ways
(3) how'd that happen, and then
(4) balance and counterpoint , plus
(5) future forecast --- segments 4-5 here are especially relevant for your question, I think:
Abadi, C. (2023, June 23). Adam Tooze on Why the Economic Gap Between the United States and Europe Is Growing. Foreign Policy. Retrieved from https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/06/23/adam-tooze-economic-gap-united-states-europe-growing/ (archived https://archive.ph/hhZqv)
This is great! I think that answers my concerns really well. I guess in some ways it really does depend on the sectors being compared. The energy tech is a really good one, same with biotech, as I would expect they become more and more relevant in the future, even compared to AI-based and adjacent tech.
And now my personal response on the article.
As a tech lay-person1, perhaps I am only fit to comment on the writing itself.
The posted article's entire premise hinges upon this thesis: "Europe is a macro-consumer: virtually everything of value comes from elsewhere" -- And then to back up this claim, the author has this to say:
!!! For everyone wanting to read this piece to see if his titular premise is correct, save your time! The writer considers his own premise to be self-evident to the point that supports are tangential and a mere footnote.
This is not how one writes an argumentative piece. The author was probably so outraged by the AI regulation that he wanted to rush ahead with his future prediction and his own person take on how to save the EU, before he even spends any time researching his own arguments. A more reflective writer would first examine his/her own thesis as a hypothesis, then conduct research to see if he/she is right or wrong, and then perhaps change his mind, or at least present a more nuanced argument with a smaller, better fitted scope. Eg, "in terms of consumer facing software tech, the EU is behind" or "AI regulation bad", rather than "EU bad".
Instead, we are treated to a single context-less graph from Financial Times, and that when he was a child, he hadn't "met people who make stuff." Sad news for his family who made time for him, the European farmers who grew at least some of his food, the social safety net that made his town safe, and the policy makers who enabled him and his family to immigrate to Silicone Valley, where I suppose they create all of the only things in life worth anything to him.
1 tech layperson : ...well, outdated to the point of being virtually a lay person now. I had been a programmer once. I had only learned about what a petabyte is last week. Gonna need a lot of help from y'all when I go back to school for compsci this year.....
Silicon Valley types have a weird victim complex when it comes to EU regulation. I don't want to suggest all of their concerns are imaginary -- it's certainly worth asking why the EU doesn't have a Google or Apple equivalent -- but on the other hand, I think they're more worried about ~vibes~ than actual laws.
For example, take this recent submission to HN ("EU opens proceedings against X over efforts to combat information manipulation"). I mean, most people here would probably think, No shit, misinformation spews from X like fire from hell, but instead the majority of the comment section is full of unsubstantiated allegations of impropriety by EU actors.
I was kind of done with the article when I clicked on one of the standard "source" annotations, only to be met with more of his uninformed opinions. Instead of, you know, an actual source.
Even tech though. Yeah there's no ubers, or googles, but what about standards and tech you're using to this day?
Before I make the argument I must preface this by saying that in a globalized world such as this one, saying "x technology is from y place" is somewhat simplifying it. People from everywhere worked on 20th and 21st century tech.
That said, what about European developed Bluetooth? A standard most people use daily, if not constantly.
The World Wide Web was developed by the Swiss CERN (to further illustrate my point above: using DARPA's ARPANET tech as the base).
The creator of the VIM text editor was Dutch.
And really, I could go on for a while. Fact of the matter is, is that Europe doesn't need Silicon Valley-esque mega-corps to be on the forefront of technological development. It's fairly American to assume that the only way to be a pioneer is to rake in oodles of cash, when it couldn't be further from the truth.
Even so, I do think the European Union is strong enough to pave the way for their own healthy tech sector that doesn't rely on US corporations and websites. The entire Twitter debacle got authorities all rattled and so much ended up moving away from Twitter to self-hosted Mastodon instances (Like firefighters, police, municipalities, parts of the government, etc). Clearly any regulations forced upon these corporations are taken in stride, the EU is too big to ignore as a customer base, so why shouldn't the EU foster their own?
Also, the creator of Linux, the operating system underpinning 90% of servers worldwide, is Finnish! Not American.
I'm not an economist and have limited knowledge on many of the subjects that this article touch, but this lengthy text can really be summarized in a single line: "deregulation is good, socialism is bad".
Like, ok, we can agree that the USA dominate the tech world mostly thanks of a lack of regulation, but.. damn, I feel like I read some USA fanfic. That's some impressively narrow point of view.
But does the regulation make any sense? I was taken aback by this:
Not to mention clauses in the regulation like:
It does seem rather toothless and unhelpful. The product of busywork rather than anything thoughtful and well informed. FWIW, I would 100% support harsher penalties for more serious offenses.
It's a fundamental misunderstanding of simple law that's really common in Americans.
We do not want to put people in prison. We create a narrow set of laws and we say "This stuff, this is so far beyond the norms of acceptable behaviour that we're going to send you to prison if you do it". But that does not mean that anything else is fine! It does not mean that anything else is acceptable! We have social norms, and we enforce those with codes of ethics and morality, and those kick in quite a long way before the law gets involved.
The punishment is not the deterrent. The deterrent is that it's illegal.
Why don't you steal? Your neighbour's house is right there - why don't you just wait until they're out and then kick a window in and rob them? It's not, I hope, because you don't want to go to prison if you get caught. It is, I hope, because you're not the kind of person who burglarises houses.
But also, in what world is "Hey boss, I did a thing that just lost the company 7% of annual revenue" the kind of convo anyone wants to have?
I think generally, people in the USA are more consequence-minded than civics-minded. They don't want to get in trouble, they don't want to get arrested, they don't want to get embarrassed. There isn't much thought towards the more top-level concept that to have a functioning society we all need to look out for each other and do what we can to protect each other. That we need to follow rules because we believe in them, not because we have to. I've lived in a couple of places where it was more common, but I'd say as a whole, it's not something the average American thinks about.
It’s super reductive to think that people have no ethical compass, and that they will turn immediately to crime given the opportunity. I’m not saying it’s not true, but I wish the law wasn’t the only thing holding people back from harming others (and sometimes not even that is enough). We need a cultural shift back toward morality, especially in the absence of religion and nationalism, because there are better ways to establish a foundation of morality that don’t cause such collateral damage. All these institutions fail to address the root cause of our unhappiness. Giving people a basic decent living is probably why we see less of this violence in Europe imo, not gun laws, not any laws except those that regulate corporations out of keeping people on the streets from their own greed.
I didn't mean to imply that us Americans have no ethical compass, just that on average we don't prioritize it when making decisions. I would love a shift towards people considering large scale compassion, a focus on doing the right thing for its own sake and not for religion or legality. Addressing concerns about basic economic stability and education would do wonders for us as a people, but there is so much working against these changes.
I believe that for many Americans, the reason for this is that they feel they can’t afford to prioritize their ethical compass. Especially for the working class, opportunities to meaningfully get ahead are not only rare, but continue to grow more rare with time, and while doing the right thing feels good it often does nothing to keep a roof over one’s head or to achieve or bolster long-term financial security.
Of course, the US has a long history of being driven by capitalists mostly interested in furthering themselves which has no doubt been a massive influence on its culture, but scarcity of opportunity reinforces that behavior and pushes people who’d under more prosperous conditions put ethics ahead of personal benefit to do otherwise.
I don’t think that was implied by your original comment but it brought up thoughts of how people tend to justify a somewhat broken system duct-taping our society in place.
to be fair, there was an entire movie about that concept. A very crass one not at all rooted in reality, but I'm sure many have those kinds of intrusive thoughts. I've seen enough looting during otherwise noble riots and protests to know that there is a decent amount of ethical quandaries quashed by the consequences of getting caught, waiting for the right time and place.
I think it's a mix of both. civil unrest + easy access to firearms = much innocent blood spilt. Firearms aren't the cause of the unrest but a force multiplier on harm done due to that.
I think the application of existing norms or the government trying to create new norms by preempting situations with laws is exactly what the author is arguing against. Feeling deterred from doing innovative things because of these norms ostensibly holds back innovation.
The difference in thinking is that in some places (like the SF tech scene the author is in), this is exactly the kind of conversation people want to be having. If you're able to double the size of the company and only lose 7% of revenue to fines, that would be a win. If your company gets to the point where the government is thinking of levying fines against you, that means you pushed the envelope as far as you could. This may or may not be slightly hyperbolic, people probably aren't specifically looking to skirt the law, but they are always trying to find some kind of angle or advantage, which tends to exist at the margins.
Whether this kind of dedication to growth is a good thing or a bad thing is certainly debatable. I'm not sure the morality of advancing AI tech can be compared to a subject with a long history of known consequences like burglary. The author seems to think pushing growth of AI tech a good thing. I think that we should remain somewhat cautious about the possible side effects of this innovation, so some regulation may be needed. However, if the regulation is overly restrictive, the development will still happen, just elsewhere.
For good reason, as history serves. Tech is certainly in its own bubble where most websites won't cost human lives, but this sort of regulation comes from history in medicine, engineering, transportation, and many other sectors where you can't just "send it out on beta". We're seeing direct consequences of that "fail fast" mentality as tech dives into fields likes self-driving cars. Thankfully that is one aspect where the governments around the country did in fact regulate fast.
Sure, but I don't see that as a bad thing, not in the modern world where things are so globalized. It's not like if China makes the "perfect AI" first that suddenly the US/EU can no longer compete.
Not to say that it's less bad when chinese people suffer, but I as an individual have basically zero voice over there in any way shape or form. At least there are good parts of the EU that speak english and can be talked with.
I think that's true of most people. But much less true for companies in the US (and elsewhere, to varying degrees).
Hot take inbound: The US is good at growing wealth, Europe is good at providing essentials. It's better to be poor or middle class in Europe, it's better to be rich in the US. It's easier to become rich in the US, but it's still rather unlikely.
My hairbrained theory is that the wealthy of Europe (read nobility) have a much longer memory than the wealthy of the US; same for the working class (lumping in anyone who "labors"). In Europe there was been a long history of turmoil, and through that, a lot of "experiments" have taken place. What are the components and requirements for a revolution? A lack of food (let them eat cake!) or a lack of shelter (Springtime of the Peoples)? I think the oligarchy of Europe has found the formula, as long as folks have food and shelter they are generally fine. Now stir into the mix that healthy people work more and work better and you have the addition of healthcare. The makings of a stable society. In Europe there are many things that work worse than the US, but their baseline for existence is much higher.
Domestically, we don't have that long memory. We tend to follow the thinking of the Carnegies and Rockefellers and Gettys. Innovate quickly, push for every additional possible dollar, and dispose of anything unnecessary. I think that is still the mindset we have if you look at the "innovators" or capitalists of today. And because of that mindset I think we do see much more explosive wealth, which is good for those projected by the blast, but bad for those standing on the launchpad. Uber was great for the early employees and investors, but horrible for the working rights for millions of Americans (which you and I subsidize through state and federal healthcare programs).
So yes, the US is better than Europe at creating wealth. But Europe has a controlled and reasonable growth, where as the US is seeing unstable, explosive growth. Growth that is not beneficial to the vast majority of it's citizens.
I like this take. I also, in some sort of abstract sense, appreciate that there exists a country that takes those risks and pushes the boundaries, as the best things to come out of that experimentation may benefit everyone.
It kind of sucks to live in, though.
I honestly can't engage critically with this article. Is it because he phrases it as if europeans produce nothing, and only consume? Disregard the 6.2 trillion EUR worth of sold industrial production for 2022. I guess at this point we also have to disregard the fact that the EU is a net exporter...
Or maybe it's due to how human beings are supposedly only worth knowing if they are good units of production? I honestly couldn't give a crap if my friends or acquaintances "make stuff". I determine their worth based on (perhaps) outdated concepts, such as: are they good people? Do they treat others right?
Sarcasm aside, we could use a lot more judgement worldwide, and perhaps stop innovating for the sake of "innovating" (read: profiting). Also, I don't recall any average person generating any demand for AI. Average people want safety, good food, good company, free time and purpose.
If AI is really being pushed down our throats, we might as well legislate it from the start and avoid some headaches. Just as how I choose what goes in my body, how I spend my time, what I spend my money on - so should we, collectively, decide if and how we want these technological innovations forced into our lives.
I want this legislation. I don't care about inventing the next iPhone. I don't want to become a capitalist bro. My life is more than producing plastic/code junk.
being a good person doesn't mean you get to keep good company around you, sadly. World is working people out of too much of their time just to survive, and some people barely even want to engage with anyone outside their immediate family once you're at the marriage step. No good deed, and world's getting lonlier.
thing is many American's do have this stuff (except perhaps free time), and that's what the "innovators" target. Or in this case, innovators target companies who can then use this to sell more widgets to consumers.
It's very true that the ones who don't have suffering comparable to 3rd world countries, but the "average person" does share a bit of blame here for legislation that sometimes directly reduces the funding needed for such safety nets. I don't think that cultural apathy is something reserved for only the elite.
I'm sorry, but you can't honestly claim that Americans have good food, when 57% of the caloric intake in the US comes from ultra-processed foods
And based on the very (very) small amount of American news that I am exposed to, I somehow doubt that they get the other important things either.
America is the melting pot, of course we have good food, no matter your culture.
Now, 1) can Americans afford the good stuff? 2) do americas consume a bunch of ultra processes stuff in addition to good food? These are where that study you linked start to come into effect. But it's not like it's physically impossible to eat well (in quality of taste or health).
Well, America is very divided right now in multiple angles, so the answer to your questions can be yes or no, to all or none of these aspects. It really depends on your socioeconomic background. You can live very well in America or live like you're in a third world country, even when sampling the exact same town.
I was answering more from my personal socio-economic perspective of lower-middle to middle class life.
Yeah food is one of the things that is RADICALLY wealth dependent in the US.
If "individual wealth" is the only metric that matters, sure, maybe Europe is lagging behind the US...
But is it? Americans themselves don't think they 'create' anything anymore. China and Mexico 'create' most of that wealth for American individuals. The line about iPads particularly... No European computers? Because the ZX Spectrum was famously American, right? The American games industry as we know it would likely be dead without an infusion of European and Japanese efforts. What about American media, like Netflix's hit show "The Witcher" (totally not Polish) or NBC's "The Office" (totally different from The Office... Hell, even 95's Office was derivative of another UK work)? What about cars? Even Dodge is owned by the Europeans now, one of the Big Three American automakers.
What I'm getting at here is that this is looking at a tiny snapshot of a given moment and claiming American exceptionalism. Rome fell at one point too.
I moved from America to the EU a few years ago for a variety of reasons, namely the quality of life and culture, and I haven't looked back. But I'm also in the tech sector and this article worries me a bit. I'm not sure how accurate of a portrayal it is since I lack the breadth of knowledge to judge. I'm not an entrepreneur per se but adjacent, and I'm not sure how to act moving forward for my long term future.
I am no expert either but based on the limited knowledge I do have, the article seems based on cherry-picking data points that support a pre-selected narrative and ignoring the rest. You can "support" any narrative by doing that.
You say you live in the EU - have you not seen any of those popular articles or YouTube videos about how Europe is basically on the verge of collapse, flooded by Muslim immigrants, native Europeans running away, no-go zones, terror, rape, gang violence... And have you seen anything like that around you, where you live? There is a simple way to create a narrative like that - you take some problem that actually exists in some specific place, exaggerate it, generalize it from one location to the whole EU (conveniently ignoring all other data points that go counter to your narrative) and voila, you have a catastrophic article or video that will certainly attract attention.
I think the article we are discussing here is constructed in a similar manner. That iPad example is illustrative - sure, Apple is an American company. But it's not like they produce iPads in the US. I don't know the specific details about iPad but these products are extremely complex and it's not like Europeans do not have anything to do with it - like, isn't ASML (=bleeding-edge chips), a Dutch company? And TSMC is not European, but it is not American either. I could easily construct a similar article about the US lagging behind (and not that I have not seen articles like that).
And more generally speaking, it's not like some of the most advanced tech is not produced in Europe. Sure, a lot of the final products come from China... but the precise machinery they use still comes mostly from Europe, etc.
All their chips are now ARM chips. Which is a UK design firm. So the literal foundation of all Apple products is based on IP from a UK company.
Sure, but that is a universally-applicable narrative, especially to any Western state. The AI regulation is a new one and the closest analogy I can use to understand it is the GDPR, which I think is a net positive but has also many, many shortcomings and annoyances.
I was more so looking for a perspective from those in the industry tech space, who would be more directly affected by this regulation and would be re-maneuvering around it in the short term.
A lot of the relevant regulations are quite new, but as someone working in Europe as a data scientist and keeping an eye on jobs in the field in relevant cities, I'm not particularly worried. There are plenty of tech companies that are using AI in the exact same way most US tech companies are, outside the truly massive players. There are even domains where European companies dominate; DeepL absolutely crushes even Google translate at any language it's available for afaik (certainly at the ones I speak), despite being a (relatively) small German company.
The personal computing booms?! The ZX Spectrum, BBC Micro and Raspberry Pi are all European, specifically British inventions. Almost every phone or tablet in the world uses ARM chips designed by Arm Holdings, a British company who are descended from Acorn Computers, who created the BBC Micro, the Archimedes PC, and RISC OS.
The concept of an internet might be American through its development at DARPA. However, the World Wide Web, HTTP, URL's, and HTML were designed by Tim Berners-Lee, a British Computer Scientist, at CERN, a European intergovernmental research facility which is, to this day, still researching cutting edge physics via the Large Hadron Collider.
This author doesn't know what he's talking about, I can smell a Silicon Valley tech bro a mile away.
No single KPI will capture the whole picture, but everything generally points in the direction that the author was saying. The largest tech market by far is the US, next is probably China, and Europe is essentially not participating. It's so obviously true that the author didn't feel a need to labor the point.
Some metrics you can look at - total venture funding, market cap of listed tech companies, employees in the industry, quality of listed tech companies (growth, margins) etc. Arguably the only world class listed European tech company is ASML (which listens to the US anyway - see the China chip sanctions). Less specific to tech - look at GDP/capita charts for Western Europe vs US, which tracked closely until 2008 when the US broke off and just kept grinding up vs Europe which has stagnated.
The fundamentals are pretty poor for Europe. It's harder for companies to get funding (less capital + risk appetite) and harder for startups to succeed (regulation, EU more fragmented, loss averse mentality). So the rare European successes tend to move to the US anyway, either by choice (Spotify) or acquisition (DeepMind, ARM).
Happy to discuss in DMs.
ARM are still based in the UK as far as I'm aware, they were acquired by SoftBank, a Japanese conglomerate, but retained their HQ in Cambridge.
There was an attempt by Nvidia to purchase ARM from SoftBank but it was squashed by regulatory pressure from a number of bodies, one of whom was the UK Government due to a worry about national security concerns so they've not gone anywhere and are still a UK based and headquartered company.
Arm is not really as UK as you think:
Interesting article, though it does come off a bit doomer-ist to me. I do feel like the comparisons between the US and Europe here aren’t the most fair on Europe. Some of the comparisons they make are more sort of Silicon Valley vs Europe and they make it out to be like that’s the whole US vs Europe.
That being said, the author’s point about the EU being a consumer rather than a producer really stood out to me because it’s something I didn’t think about much myself either and I find myself agreeing with it, at least when it comes to tech. Looking in from the outside, the EU has dug itself into a bit of a hole by relying heavily on the American and Asian tech sectors. They consume a lot more from our tech companies than they seem to put in and then try to control how they work. With all these extra regulations, the American and Asian companies could simply choose not to do business in Europe anymore, effectively disconnecting them from the rest of the world. Like the author mentioned, there’s no European computer or mobile devices. Most computers/mobile phones are built by American or Asian companies and use American and Asian software. Realistically, these companies wouldn’t pull out of such a huge market but it’s interesting to think about what could happen if they do.
I do think that Europe would very much benefit from fostering its own tech sector and insert itself among American and Asian sectors. However, this is going to be a monumental task. The EU is still a bunch of separate nations, each with their own goals and pride. The United States is lucky that there is a unifying “American” identity to bring together all 300 million of us. There’d need to be a powerful unifying “European” identity in order to bring the 400 million citizens of the EU member nations together to develop a sector as powerful as the US in my opinion.
I don't think they could. EU is a huge market and even China cannot afford to just cut the EU off. It could cause big problems for them. And I mean like significant layoffs and economic downtun, instability and societal unrest kind of problems.
Also, maybe you underestimate how mutually dependent we are in this world? We (EU) depend on China a lot (and personally, I think we should not)... but they also depend on us. There are whole areas where they use precise machinery from Germany, Italy, etc. to produce - and if some "cutting off" occurred, there would probably be some kind of retaliation.
Again, I am not an expert, so take all of this with a grain of salt, but AFAIK China still cannot handle for example the most advanced chip-making technology they will need for AI growth (or for advanced military stuff). I am sure they are trying to rectify that but now they still depend on ASML - or at least they did until recently - have the US succeeded in pressuring them to cut China off? It is hard to keep track lately.
Oh yeah I wasn't suggesting that the US even has the power or should for any reason even think of cutting off Europe from our tech. Like you mentioned, the world is an interconnected place with countries mutually depending on each other. The EU countries are some of our biggest allies so cutting them off from our tech would be a stupid decision.
Yep, I know, I was talking mostly about China, because, unlike the US, China could have additional motivation on top of that regulation stuff to cut us off. With international relationships shaping the way they are shaping lately, some form of decoupling will probably actually occur. Let's not forget that this is not just about money, it is also a geopolitical game. I am no expert in this either, but I have read a few really interesting articles about this (decoupling and friendshoring policies) written by Noahpinion: https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/stop-saying-there-is-no-decoupling
Other people addressed the problems with the economic comparison. I want to put in a good word for regulating at the application level. I think it would be hard to come up with general principles that would regulate driverless cars without writing regulations specific to driverless cars, or at least cars?
I don’t know enough about the EU’s new AI regulations to have an opinion, though.
I do think it's worth making the distinction that a lot of US companies aren't creating wealth, they're extracting it from the working class to further enrich the wealthy. You see this in the health insurance industry, where the US spends double per capita as other developed nations but has worse healthcare for huge amounts of people.
You also see it in Silicon Valley. The "innovation" the first wave of SV companies was extracting huge amounts of personal data to try and make better ads (Google, Facebook, etc.), turning personal privacy into a resource that could be destroyed for profit like never before. The "innovation" of the second wave was externalizing the cost of equipment necessary to operate the business onto employees (Uber, AirBNB, etc.). And while there were some genuine technical innovations that went along with it, I'm not exactly going to be jazzed that someone's robbing me with a gun instead of a pointy stick, even though it represents significant technical progress, you know?
Learn from Australia ...borrow get a mortgage get heavily overgeared