"EU is leading in regulation", they say.
I don't know what they are thinking.
Sorry, this is just getting old...
Its a trite talking point and not the reason why there are so few consumer-AI companies in Europe.
And what would be the reason? I am genuinely interested. Also, are there viable not "consumer" AI companies here? Only Mistral seems to train foundation models, and good for them, however, as of now they are absolutely not SOTA.
Money.
No, really - EU doesn't have the VCs and the megacorps. People laugh at EU sponsoring projects, but there is no private money to sponsor them. There are plenty of US companies with sites in the EU though, so you have people working the problems, but no branding.
Ok, just a quick question… why does Europe not have the money actual/people?
Part of the answer is debt.
The U.S. has a debt of 35Tn. The entire EU around 16Tn.
If even 10% of the debt difference was invested in tech that would have meant about $2tn more in investment in EU tech.
The amount of debt you are allowed to take and the abundance of money to invest in new projects are in direct proportion to the competitiveness of the jurisdiction, i.e. business-friendly environment.
EU is not a business-friendly environment.
Because Europeans don't take smart risks. Because they over regulate.
It's fascinating watching people circle back to this answer.
Regulation and taxation reduces incentives. Lower incentives, means lower risk-taking.
The fact this is still a lesson that needs to be debated is absurd.
I would love to know what you do for a living and whether you personally have taken any smart risks that have lead you to financial success, or whether you just like sniping on HN about school shootings and pretending to be superior.
Europeans also mostly don’t suffer from school shootings and generally don’t go bankrupt when they get cancer or just take an ambulance ride to a non-network hospital. Regulation is not all bad, besides the US has more of it than anybody else.
The vast majority of Americans don't do either of those things either.
And given what happened in Austria just a few hours back, not the best time for your comment.
There have been 11 mass shootings in the US in the last 7 days so I don't think this disgusting competition is one you're likely to win.
Nobody is claiming the US has less mass shootings. It's just pointless whataboutism in a conversation (economic strategy) that has nothing to do with it.
Regulation was the point discussed, healthcare and gun controls are two examples where there are massive qualitative and quantitative differences in regulation between EU and USA. E.g. healthcare is a matter of national security in the EU and it's a profit center for pension funds in the USA. Gun controls I'm not too familiar with, I can only see second order effects in the US in the form of an arms race between police and citizens.
No, ECONOMIC regulation was the point discussed. That has zilch to do with something like gun control.
Ah good, I thought you were trying to imply there is an equivalent problem in the EU. Which would seem to be intentionally dense of course.
The mental gymnastics here are incredible. Do you really think the regulations inhibiting tech startup creation are the same ones that protect people when they get cancer or whatever?
Yes, the US has a lot of school shootings, but does anyone think loose gun regulations are why the US is strong on tech?
Any time European economic failings are brought up it's always the same thing. "Well at least no school shootings!"
Great, Singapore has less school shootings and homeless people than anywhere in Europe by a country mile and has a soaring economy.
Eh, Singapore's efforts to nurture a thriving startup scene are met with middling success at most.
Agreed, but Singapore has only 5 million people which limits their potential in that regard.
Are you implying that Singapore is not ultra regulated?
They make Europe look like Texas.
No, you're right, Singapore is both highly regulated and successful. I just meant to highlight that the soaring economy doesn't include many high-tech startups.
> Because Europeans don't take smart risks. Because they over regulate.
If you said you can look at the state of VC funding in the US and call it anything approximating "smart risks" I don't know that I'd believe you.
Thats hardly unique to Europeans. Look at UAV regulations in the US - regulated to death based on nothing, leading to a 5 to 10 year technology gap to China, while recreational pilots crash and burn every other week.
Most recently, due to ordoliberalism and coat-according-to-cloth morality guiding economic policy rather than money printer go brrr.
Longer term: cultural and language divisions despite attempts at creating a common market, not running the global reserve currency/military hegemony, social democracies encouraging work-life balance over cutthroat careerism, demographic issues, not getting a boost from being the only consumer economy not to be leveled in WW2, etc.
Quick questions don’t always have quick answers.
Moneywise, the US does have the good old Exorbitant Privilege to lean on.
edit: the parent has since edited out the flamebait.
Maybe, or maybe when silicon valley was busy growing exponentially Europe was still picking itself up from the mess of ww2.
Trying to blame a single reason is futile, naive and childish.
The US was out-innovating Europe a long time before WW2, we had faster, more extensive rail systems, superior high rise construction, earlier to electrification, invention of the telephone, modern manufacturing (Model T), invention of the airplane, the birth of Hollywood and modern motion pictures, the list goes on.
I think it's funny how the US, Canada, and Scotland/the UK all simultaneously claim to be the home of the telephone.
Unlike the US, the EU does not have reserve currency privilige, so we can't print enless trillions of paper and force the rest of the world to give us their companies and goods in return for it.
I can only talk about my personal (US based) experience. This includes many US based startups,some VC startups, senior leadership in a large tech company, and a senior executive position in another large tech company. I have also worked with, and built, tech organizations in multiple EU countries, and have been involved in the technical due diligence and acquisition discussions with several EU companies. I admit that my experience is about 6 years old, as I am no longer in the tech industry, and I do not know what has changed during this time.
Money: There is more money for US startups. Investors (US and EU) want to invest in US based startups, not EU startups. US investors are willing to risk more money and take greater risk. EU startups that gain traction will attract US companies in that they provide a good way to extend their market to the EU, not as much for their innovations. Tech entrepreneurs (US or EU) want to work in the US if they can, because that is where the excitement and risk taking is and where the money can be made.
Teams: Building and managing EU tech teams is very different than US tech teams. EU teams need a lot more emotional hand holding, and EU engineers are far more salary oriented than equity oriented. It is far more difficult to motivate them to go above and beyond - the "we need to get this fix or feature in tonight so we can deploy n the morning" simply will not get done if it is already 5pm. Firing EU workers is much more difficult. There are a lot more regulations for EU teams, in order to "protect" them, and that results in the teams being more "lifestyle" teams rather than "innovation teams". EU teams get paid a lot less than their US counterparts.
Failure: Good failure is not a problem in the US, it can actually be a badge of honor. EU is very risk averse, and people avoid failure.
There are of course exceptions all around, but the weight of these observations and experiences are in favor of US teams.
This is in no way saying it is better to live in the US, there are a lot of things about the EU that are more attractive than the US, and I would probably have a better lifestyle living in Europe now that I am no longer working. But innovation and money is not one of them.
It is fairly common to struggle to understand why different cultures think the way they do.
Ugh.
Edit: Parent changed their comment significantly, from something quite unpleasant to what it is now. I'm not deleting my comment as I'm not that kind of person.
I did. I initially said that Europeans often struggle to understand other cultures too. Which was an immature way to point out that the cultural dissonance works both ways. I realized that I was obfuscating my point and rewrote my comment to be clearer, but now that you gave me a chance to think on it some more, I wish I would have said what I wanted to say more directly still.
What I wanted to say is: I like EU's regulation and I find it interesting how other people have different world views.
I live in Europe.
Cool, which regulations exactly stopped you from doing cutting edge AI?
regulation-culture breed a certain type of risk-taking culture. So, you can't blame a specific regulation for lack of innovation culture
Im not sure about that, Europe has plenty of starups. Also, IIRC it has larger number of small businesses than US as in US huge companies employ huge numbers of people.
What Europe does not have is scale ups in tech. The tech consolidated in US. By tech I mean internet based companies. Remove those and EU has higher productivity.
Décret sur la Pause Goûter Universelle (PGU).
Is that the regulation that says you need to allow someone to take a 20 minute break after 6 hours of work?
Chinese Employers to Grant 15 Minute Maternity Break
https://theonion.com/chinese-employers-to-grant-15-minute-ma...
This is why I want to move to the EU. I don’t care if companies aren’t coddled there. I want to live where people are the first priority.
Well, are you ready to live on a low middle class salary of a European software engineer? It is really low middle class. The middle middle here would be a bank clerk, and upper middle — a lawyer or a surgeon.
This is not coincidental.
Incidentally (also not) surgeons and lawyers are not poor in the states either… it’s just Silicon Valley was the perfect place with just the right people and it kept growing for 60 years straight. Surgery and law do not grow exponentially. (I’ll pretend the pages of regulation aren’t supposed to count.)
probably some silly thing like "people should have more rights and protections"
Rights and protections that have benefited heavily from an economy built on the alliance with the US.
If it weren't for American help and trade post-WW2, Europe would be a Belarusian backwater and is fast heading back in that direction.
Countries like Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, etc. show the future of Europe as it slowly stagnates and becomes a museum that can't feed it's people.
Even Germany that was once excelling is now collapsing economically.
The only bright spot on the continent right now is Poland who are, shocker, much less regulatorily strict and have lower corporate taxes.
> Countries like Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal
PIGS, really? Some of the top growing EU economies right now, which have turned their deficit around, show the future of a slowly stagnating Europe?
A 200B economy growing 2% is the future of the EU? Yes that is the point I am making.
I've yet to find any rights and protections in these cookie banners.
The cookie banners are corps trying to circumvent the rights and protections. If they actually went by the spirit of the protections, the cookie banners wouldn't be needed. Your ire is misdirected.
Are you sure?
The ePrivacy Directive requires a (GDPR-level) consent for just placing the cookie, unless it's strictly necessary for the provision of the “service”. The way EU regulators interpret this, even web analytics falls outside the necessity exception and therefore requires consent.
So as long as the user doesn't and/or is not able to automatically signal consent (or non-consent) eg via general browser-level settings, how can you obtain it without trying to get it from the user on a per-site basis somehow? (And no, DNT doesn't help since it's an opt-out, not an opt-in mechanism.)
Everyone I know of will try to click "reject all unnecessary cookies", and you don't need the dialog for the necessary ones. You can therefore simply remove the dialog and the tracking, simplifying your code and improving your users' experience. Can tracking the fraction which misclicks even give some useful data?
My point was that according to the current interpretation, if they rely on cookies, user analytics (even simple visitor stats where no personal data is actually processed) are not considered "necessary" and are therefore not exempt from the cookie consent obligation under the ePrivacy Directive. The reason why personal data processing is irrelevant is that the cookie consent requirement itself is based on the pre-GDPR ePrivacy Directive which requires, as a rule, consent merely for saving cookies on the client device (subject to some exceptions, including the one discussed).
So you need a consent for all but the most crucial cookies without which the site/service wouldn't be able to function, like session cookies for managing signed-in state etc.
(The reason why you started to see consent banners really only after GDPR came to force is at least in part due to the fact that the ePrivacy Directive refers to the Data Protection Directive (DPD) for the standard of consent, and after DPD was replaced by GDPR, the arguably more stringent GDPR consent standard was applied, making it unfeasible to rely on some concept of implied consent or the like.)
User analytics that require cookies, sounds like tracking to me.
> like session cookies for managing signed-in state etc.
Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but are you saying that consent is required for session cookies? Because that is not the case, at all.
> (25) However, such devices, for instance so-called "cookies", can be a legitimate and useful tool, for example, in analysing the effectiveness of website design and advertising, and in verifying the identity of users engaged in on-line transactions. Where such devices, for instance cookies, are intended for a legitimate purpose, such as to facilitate the provision of information society services, their use should be allowed on condition that users are provided with clear and precise information in accordance with Directive 95/46/EC about the purposes of cookies or similar devices so as to ensure that users are made aware of information being placed on the terminal equipment they are using. Users should have the opportunity to refuse to have a cookie or similar device stored on their terminal equipment. This is particularly important where users other than the original user have access to the terminal equipment and thereby to any data containing privacy-sensitive information stored on such equipment. Information and the right to refuse may be offered once for the use of various devices to be installed on the user's terminal equipment during the same connection and also covering any further use that may be made of those devices during subsequent connections. The methods for giving information, offering a right to refuse or requesting consent should be made as user-friendly as possible. Access to specific website content may still be made conditional on the well-informed acceptance of a cookie or similar device, if it is used for a legitimate purpose.
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2002/58/oj/eng
You should inform users about any private data you would be storing in a cookie. But this can be a small infobox on your page with no button.
When storing other type of information, the "cookie" problem needs to be seen from the perspective of shared devices. You know, the times before, when you might forget to log out at an internet cafe or clear your cookies containing password and other things they shouldn't. This is a dated approach at looking at the problem (most people have their own computing devices today, their phone), but still applicable (classrooms, and family shared devices).
there are analytics providers that don't require third party cookies, it's not hard to switch
The cookie consent provision under the ePrivacy Directive doesn't care whether they're first- or third-party. Actually, the way it's been worded, you'd arguably need a consent for (strictly non-"necessary") use of eg local storage, too — afaik this hasn't really come up in regulatory practice or case law, but may be more due to regulators' modest technical expertise or priorities.
A conceptually different matter altogether is consent (possibly) needed under GDPR for various kinds of personal data processing involving the use of cookies (ie not just the placement of cookies as such) and other technologies for tracking, targeting and the like. That's why you see cookie banners with detailed purposes and eg massive lists of vendors (since they can be considered "recipients" of the user's personal data under GDPR). In this context, a valid consent (and the information you have to provide to obtain it) is required (at least) when consent is the only feasible legal basis of the ones available under Art 6 GDPR for the personal data processing activities in question. This is where the national regulators have taken strict stances especially regarding ad targeting and other activities usually involving cross-site tracking, for example, deeming that the only feasible basis for those activities would be consent (ie "opt-in") — instead of, in particular, "legitimate interests" which would enable opt-out-like mechanisms instead. This is the legal context of looking critically at 3rd-party cookies, but unfortunately, for the reasons mentioned above, getting rid of such cookies might still not be enough to avoid the minimal base cookie consent requirement when you use eg analytics... :(
It's pretty ridiculous, I know, and it's a bummer they scrapped the long-planned and -negotiated ePrivacy Regulation which was meant to replace the old ePrivacy Directive and, among other things, update the weird old cookie consent provision.
As you said yourself, analytics are not necessary.
It's corpos trying to invade our privacy.
cookie banners are malicious compliance while we head towards the death of cross-site cookies, they are indeed a poor implementation but the legislation that lead to them did not come up with it
did you really prefer when companies were selling your data to third parties and didn't have to ask you?
Do you really think clicking "Reject non-essential cookies" does something?
EU regulation is often "you can not have the cool thing" not "the cool thing must be operated equitably".
I think they are more interested in protecting old money than in protecting people.
EU never just states "you can not have the cool thing". Please provide an example if you disagree.
It is very hard to create policies and legislation that protects consumers, workers and privacy while also giving enough liberties for innovation. These are difficult but important trade-offs.
I'm glad there is diversity in cultures and values between the US, EU and Asia.
I think usb-c and third party app stores are pretty cool
I think the government shouldn't be legislating that companies must use a specific USB connector.
Realistically the legislation was only targeting Apple. If consumers want USB-C, then they can vote with their wallets and buy an Android, which is a reasonable alternative.
It used to be the case in Europe that you couldn't use a washing machine made for Sweden in Norway. Everything was different. Every country had its own standards too, which had to certify your products. It was openly for protectionistic reasons.
EU got rid of that. It only makes sense that they don't let private companies start all that crap up again. If states don't get to use artificial technological barriers as protectionism, certainly Apple shouldn't be allowed to either.
They shouldn't be forcing people to use patented Qualcomm technology to access cellular networks either but here we are.
Realistically Apple's connector adds no value and if they want to sell into markets like the EU they need to cut that kind of thing out.
> Realistically Apple's connector adds no value
Like I said, usb-c is a regression from lightning in multiple ways.
* Lightning is easier to plug in.
* Lightning is a physically smaller connector.
* USB-C is a much more mechanically complex port. Instead of a boss in a slot, you have a boss with a slot plugging into a slot in a boss.
There was so much buzz around Apple no longer including a wall wort with its phones, which meant an added cost for the consumer, and potentially an increased environmental impact if enough people were going to say, order a wall wort online and shipped to them. The same logic applies to Apple forced to switch to USB, except that the costs are now multiplied.
Having owned both lighting and USB-C iPhones/iPads, I prefer the USB-C experience, but neither were that bad.
My personal biggest gripe with lightning was that the spring contacts were in the port instead of the cable, and when they wore out you had to replace the phone instead of the cable. The lightning port was not replaceable. In practice I may end up breaking more USB-C ports, we'll see.
I've worked with thousands of both types of cable at this point
> Lightning is easier to plug in.
according to you? neither are at all difficult
> Lightning is a physically smaller connector.
I've had lightning cables physically disassemble in the port, the size also made them somewhat delicate
> USB-C is a much more mechanically complex port.
much is a bit well, much... they're both incredibly simple mechanically — the exposed contacts made lightning more prone to damage
I've had multiple Apple devices fail because of port wear on the device. Haven't encountered this yet with usb-c
> The same logic applies to Apple forced to switch to USB, except that the costs are now multiplied.
Apple would have updated inevitably, as they did in the past — now at least they're on a standard... the long-term waste reduction is very likely worth the switch (because again, without the standard they'd have likely switched to another proprietary implementation)
It's hard to see the benefit in letting every hardware manufacturer attempt to carve out their own little artificial interconnect monopoly and flood the market with redundant, wasteful solutions.
We've had multiple USB standards for decades with no end in sight. Apple was targeted because they have the most high-profile proprietary connector and they were generally using it to screw consumers. Good riddance.
Like I said, if consumers don't want it, then they can buy Android phones instead.
> they were generally using it to screw consumers
You understand that there were lots of people happy with Lightning? USB-C is a regression in many ways.
I want to have USB-C and I want to have iPhone.
I’m very happy EU regulators took this headache off my shoulders and I don’t need to keep multiple chargers at home, and can be almost certain I can find a charger in restaurant if I need it.
Based on the reaction of my friends 90% of people supported this change and were very enthusiastic about it.
I have zero interest in being part of vendor game to lock me in.
Products are supposed to come with different tradeoffs. I want to have an Android and I want to have my headphone jack back. That doesn't mean that the EU should make that a law.
> Based on the reaction of my friends 90% of people supported this change and were very enthusiastic about it.
That is an absolutely worthless metric, and you know it.
Why bother arguing the point if you're not going to provide a single example.
Can you name specific examples? Otherwise, this just sounds like inflammatory polemic.
Honestly the US approach to AI is incredibly irresponsible. As an American, I'm glad that someone somewhere is thinking about regulation. Not sure it will be enough though: https://xcancel.com/ESYudkowsky/status/1922710969785917691#m
There's nothing the regulation could meaningfully hope to accomplish other than slow down people willing to play by the rules.
Wow, the "criminals don't follow laws therefore laws are worthless" argument, here? In my HN?
Usually it's possible to actually detect crime (in fact it's usually hard to ignore.) That's not the case with AI.
No, thanks, we don't want to be like EU. Everything regulated to death. They even thought to criminalize street photography because there could be copyrighted materials in the picture. Not sure, are they still taxing Eiffel tower images?
EU is not a monolithic entity, and amount of regulation varies widely. Baltics are very business friendly, for example.
And Estonia has the most impressive tech ecosystem on the continent while being a soviet backwater 20 years ago. Shocking how that works.
I thought it is happening in the US, too. I mean, the Government is there to regulate the shit out of everything. Regardless of where you are.