Do you think that Europe's heavy AI regulations will put it at a disadvantage?

I have been watching the Sora reveal and it was quite terrifying.

But if you think about it, these are just the kind of tools that will be used in the near future (wether we like it or not).

And worse, they will be provided at a global scale. Meaning that even if you yourself don't provide the services in your countries, you will experience the jobs decrease anyway.

Currently almost all the big ai champions are in the USA: open ai (chatgpt3, dall-e, sora), google (Gemini), Amazon (llama2), + chip producers like Nvidia, AMD, Intel.

China follows with local tech giants making their own LLM like bytedance (TikTok creator), Alibaba, tencent, Baidu (this one has the most nature model: Ernie)

Europe, once a technological powerhouse seems to have fallen terribly behind: there is Qualcomm in England and asml in the Netherlands (neither of which do software), and big void when it comes developing its own AI.

And since this appears to be technology that will heavily influence other industries, it seems foolish to push the breaks on it when you are already lagging behind so much.

The issue of AI safety is valid, but pointless if it's not a global effort in my point of view, as you are limiting yourself in creating tools that will just be created by someone else living in a region with fewer restrictions, but that will afterwards be used where you reside as well.

A chain is only as strong as it's weakest link, and thats usually the USA and China with their lacking regulations.

Yeah, we in Europe are lagging behind it feels like. It's difficult to turn it around. The American tech giants have an enormous headstart in every area (capital, training data, talent, infrastructure etc). We are going to be at the mercy of the Americans. It feels like the EU should be able to take some initiative, but I'm not sure if it's up to it.

@Sushiglutton: I think the policy should change to partially deregulate and support applications in key areas that are either seen as economically valuable or that affect national security.

An example of the first one for me would be industrial applications for industries where Europe is already a major player like aerospace, automotors, chemicals, precision tools, lithography.

And example of the second one would be ai image, video and sound identification.

Why would they? As you've noted, Europe has no real presence on the AI scene, which, like all other western online/data tech sectors, is completely dominated by US companies. I don't imagine softening regulations would change that.

May as well look to the future is the thinking I guess.

@sancho_panzer: the reason is that this technology is likely to affect all other technologies.

If you think about it, manufacturing, teaching, medical research, material science, even archeology and astronomy are being changed by use of artificial intelligence.

It's not an area in which you can afford to lag behind if you want to be high income advanced economy.

It would be nice to believe that the next AI giant would emerge somewhere in a little village in Spain, and wealth and industry would blossom all around for millennia to come, but let's face it - that's not what would or could happen. At best, that little company would be acquired by a global player, under current economic and legal conditions.

In some areas, European economies can compete at present. Where they can't, it's not wrong to protect European people's values and livelihoods. If we naively assume the little guy can develop and compete unhindered in the global economic market, how much moreso in the global ideas market? Some entity has to be the first to actively give a shit, right? I hope I don't offend any American posters by saying this, but I'm not sure that's going to come from the US at this point, which is generally more concerned with global economic expansion than developing structures to deal with its unwanted effects. Look at the abysmal state of search engine options, social media and the personal data market for examples. Is the situation any better in China?

And are the two actually at odds? Do European nations really need to sacrifice social and ethical concerns to be economically self-determining? I haven't looked into any of this to be honest... Which regulatory measures are those that worry you specifically?

@sancho_panzer: dude European union is not small in terms of population, wealth or talent.

They also still posses a lot of tech companies even though they are not among the most represented in the consumer oriented market.

1.A little village is Spain is very unlikely to produce the new ai champion. But it also don't represent the eu as a whole. Even Spain itself ( which is a tourism focus economy with a very average education level) would be better served by using Barcelona, Madrid, Valencia, or basque country as a reference, since those areas do have mature tech and software industries.

2.In comparison, china does have several software giants. Many of which you probably already know like TikTok owner and creator bytedance.

3. This a link describing the regulatory framework

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/06/european-union-ai-act-explained/

My beliefs is that EU will absorb all the costs of AI regardless of whether it creates those AI tools itself. Since they will simply be created elsewhere and sold in Europe.

But EU does have an opportunity to protect it's industries by generating their own AI tools

@nirgal:

1. I think you've got lost in a technicality here. But yeah, sure, I do think there is a lot European countries and the EU could be doing to help small businesses get set up and established/ stop preventing them from growing.

2. What I was getting at is, is China any better in terms of meaningful search engine options (really I'm talking about SEO flaws/abuse and competition here), social media or data privacy?

3. No, I mean, you've read up on this. I was wondering what worries you specifically in the framework... Just generally anti-regulation for your above-listed reasons? These don't feel like AI-specific complaints.

You won't get many responses without summarising the framework in the OP. You might have a great point but nobody is going to know - a bit like the way the EU introduces policies.. most people never find out.

AI is not a problem as long as you have a phased plasma rifle in a 40w range.

What are the key points of their AI regulations?