upvote

points

by SubiculumCode17 hours ago |
comments
upvoteby digitaltrees15 hours ago|
next
[-]
Sorry but questioning that claim at this point verges on bad faith or credulity.

Ask intel, paramount, TikTok or anthropic if they feel law will be applied equally to all companies.

Ask the blue states that had fema funding withheld when it went to red states.

Ask black families that haven’t gotten reparations when Jan 6 rioters that beat and killed cops to over turn an election will get almost $2b in reparations and then had the Supreme Court throw out their votes in Louisiana in the middle of an election to overturn the voting rights act, redraw districts, overturn their own case law and the principle that judicial review shouldn’t happen too close to an election so they could redraw the districts.

Business leaders are sucking up to curry favor. That by definition isn’t the rule of law it’s the rule of dispensation. It’s the spoils system.

If you have a counter argument you’d better make it now or you will tip your hand.

reply
upvoteby rob749 hours ago|
prev|
next
[-]
Well, the system allowed Trump to be elected, twice, and the system hasn't (so far) prevented him from abusing his office in the ways mentioned. So it's fair to conclude that the US system is the problem, not the symptom called Trump. And if that's the case, it's also fair to conclude that the US is no longer trustworthy, because Trump could happen again.
reply
upvoteby SwellJoe17 hours ago|
prev|
next
[-]
It isn't completely busted, unless the Trump administration has a personal interest in overriding the law. As sometimes happens when some foreign power, or just a random politician in another nation, does something he doesn't like. Or, when Trump has a personal stake in some other outcome. Who wants to gamble that Trump won't decide to wreck your businesses, sabotage your defenses, or spy on European citizens? We now know most of the major tech companies won't object to information requests, and probably won't even reveal that they've given access to the US government. US citizens maybe still have some protections, but everyone else seems to be fair game.

Frankly, I'm surprised there's not more urgency on the part of Europeans to reduce dependence on US tech. I don't like it. I'm an American in tech. But, the US can't be trusted, at this time. And, given how irresponsible tech leadership has been, in kowtowing to Trump, I don't see how they can reasonably be trusted, either.

reply
upvoteby digitaltrees14 hours ago|
parent|
next
[-]
They are moving swiftly actually. France announced the government is moving to Linux, several other countries are moving off of aws and Microsoft.

I invest in startups and companies at every stage are losing contracts in Europe specifically for this risk. I can’t say who but it’s a multi front trend.

reply
upvoteby jimbokun17 hours ago|
parent|
prev|
[-]
It’s not clear whether Europe has the capability to compete with US tech right now.
reply
upvoteby SwellJoe16 hours ago|
parent|
next
[-]
It obviously does not. But, there is nothing preventing it. The US has given away all of our foreign scientists, if Europe wants them. All Europe has to do to take the lead in tech is ramp up research spending by an order of magnitude or two to match what the US used to spend (the US still outspends Europe on research, even after massive haphazard cuts and disruptions). Europe also has to welcome immigrants. Another thing many European countries have not always been great at, and some recently have become quite bad about. The regressive nationalist right is ascendant in many places, including some European countries.
reply
upvoteby digitaltrees14 hours ago|
parent|
[-]
I am going to ramp up building open source alternatives to every part of the stack. I am encouraging every YC founder to do the same. I am buying as much hardware as I can afford to have my own inference and training stack and funding researchers at Duke and CM to strengthen local and open source AI.

I am also assembling the largest in home robotics training data set available which will be open source.

Want to help?

reply
upvoteby advael10 hours ago|
parent|
next
[-]
Kinda, yea. I've never been able to afford to fully prioritize values-alignment in my work, but it is something I care about, and building anything proprietary and US-controlled feels increasingly bad, because even if a company's mission isn't evil, the state has demonstrated a strong willingness to force their hand if they can be useful to them at all, and punish them arbitrarily if they do anything that the ruling party dislikes. I do have bills to pay, but if you can meet my relatively (as tech workers go) modest needs and have a real plan to make something that enables rather than impedes digital sovereignty, I'd be interested in hearing what I could do to help
reply
upvoteby SwellJoe12 hours ago|
parent|
prev|
[-]
The kind of funding it takes to take on US tech corporations, especially in AI, will be astronomical. For an open source solution, it will take state action, and given how unpopular AI is with average folks (an entirely reasonable position for average folks to take when they see the new robber barons who're leading the AI charge), I'm not confident there's political will for it. If a few of the larger rich European nations really committed to funding research at a level competitive with the US, though, even if not specifically AI-related, the result would be an eventual end to US tech hegemony.

I was hoping the European AI companies and projects like Mistral and Apertus would, you know, do something good. But, their models trail not only US models, but Chinese models, including smaller ones, by a significant amount. I guess there's also the ethical component. Mistral is reportedly not plagiarizing like US companies, and isn't distilling US models like the Chines companies. Cheating gives one a leg up if there are no referees.

Anyway, I work for a robotics company, and I'm always interested in what's happening with open robotics stuff, including AI.

reply
upvoteby markhahn15 hours ago|
parent|
prev|
[-]
any US tech? not even for specific purposes? yeah, if there was some kind of forcefield around the US, most of the world would have tech troubles at one level or another. but so would the US.

and really, the topic here is reducing a transgressive President from infringing tech activities elsewhere (used to be mainly about surveillance, but then trump happened).

reply
upvoteby iwontberude17 hours ago|
prev|
[-]
It’s been cooked for longer than Trump. Al Gore won in 2000 and they stole the election. Everything that followed has been a complete fuckfest.
reply