[HN Gopher] ChatGPT broke the EU plan to regulate AI
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       ChatGPT broke the EU plan to regulate AI
        
       Author : kvee
       Score  : 48 points
       Date   : 2023-03-05 19:01 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.politico.eu)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.politico.eu)
        
       | greatgib wrote:
       | I have fun with myself imagining the world we would be living in,
       | if we had the same kind of brain fucked law makers when the
       | "knife" was invented...
       | 
       | We would have to chop our steaks with chopsticks I think!
        
       | user249 wrote:
       | Good. Thanks to the EU I have to click "cookie question" every
       | where I go. Thanks guys for wasting the limited time I have in
       | life.
        
         | tekbog wrote:
         | Most websites don't need to gather and sell your data but here
         | we are.
        
         | dmix wrote:
         | The complete lack of design standards is what kills the
         | utility.
         | 
         | They should all have 3 buttons: "accept all" or "reject all" or
         | "customize", dead simple. Every time it's a different design,
         | different button text, different options. Usually rejecting =
         | multi layers of options.
         | 
         | A perfect example of good intentions making bad policy.
        
           | vishal0123 wrote:
           | I have hard time believing it is not intentional. I think
           | Europe could easily enforce consistent UI which could be
           | automated through ad blocker, but now they know that most
           | companies would rather stop serving Europe than not track
           | users for ad.
        
         | killerpopiller wrote:
         | micro targeting is a threat to our democracy (cambridge
         | analytica, Facebooks desinformation problem,..). Besides, why
         | should third parties allowed to trade my digital persona, while
         | basically knowing more about my interests and flaws than I am?
         | I hate cookie banner as well but this excessive tracking must
         | be stopped somehow.
        
           | luckylion wrote:
           | Why couldn't that have happened in the browser though? We
           | have plenty of mechanisms to block and/or delete cookies.
           | 
           | Essentially, now we're at a state where consent banners
           | exist, slowing down all sites, and there are like four
           | states: a) they look compliant, but are ignored by the
           | website provider (the EU itself takes this approach), b) they
           | are flat out ignored (a lot of companies still take this
           | approach) c) they aren't compliant (tiny "no" link, huge
           | "yes, take my firstborn" link) d) they're compliant and are
           | paywalls (buy subscription or accept everything under the
           | sun).
           | 
           | d) is what we're probably going to end up with, so you either
           | pay or you accept tracking. More and more solutions offer
           | that as an option so adoption will grow. Most people accept
           | tracking (stats that I've seen say that those paying are like
           | 1/10,000th), so what have we won exactly by doing this dance?
        
           | concordDance wrote:
           | Cambridge Analytica was actually pretty irrelevant.
        
           | user249 wrote:
           | I support your concern that I don't share, so why make me
           | suffer? I tried the "I don't care about cookies" extension
           | but it didn't work for me.
        
             | Aeolos wrote:
             | The regulation says nothing about a cookie banner. Instead,
             | it says companies cannot track you unless you give consent.
             | 
             | If you don't like cookie banners, which are indeed really
             | annoying, you should be turning your ire to the companies
             | that wish to track you. They are fully-functional solutions
             | that allow anonymous tracking without installing cookies on
             | your computer - no banner needed then.
        
               | user249 wrote:
               | I'm a grown up adult and if I wanted to block tracking I
               | could. The fact that I don't should be the only answer
               | needed but that's not good enough for the EU. They want
               | to force companies to ask me because they want to take
               | care of me and make sure I'm all right. You know, I left
               | home at 18 to get away from my parents...
        
               | satvikpendem wrote:
               | > I'm a grown up adult and if I wanted to block tracking
               | I could.
               | 
               | Good for you. Most people are not technical and can't, so
               | why do they also not deserve to not get tracked too?
        
               | funciton wrote:
               | Unless you want to be using tor all day every day, and
               | never make an online purchase or log in on a website ever
               | again, there's really no way to stop companies from
               | tracking you. The only way to make that happen is if a
               | regulatory authority forces them to. That's why the GDPR
               | exists.
        
           | kybernetyk wrote:
           | Yeah, I feel like I'm defending democracy and freedom
           | whenever I click on the "Accept All" button. Not all heroes
           | wear capes!
        
             | Jensson wrote:
             | Just install a plugin that does that for you, not sure why
             | that would inconvenience anyone. The tools exists out there
             | to make you never see such a popup again, why not use it?
        
         | xdennis wrote:
         | It's not the EU's fault that you have to click cookie banners.
         | Those banners are only required if a website plans to do
         | malicious things with the cookies. If they're used to track
         | who's logged in, they are not required.
         | 
         | They are more akin to the "Do not eat" warnings on silica
         | packs... except on the internet everyone swallows.
        
         | ilkke wrote:
         | I don't understand how this is "good"? Has your inconvenience
         | been vindicated now that EU is failing to regulate short thing?
         | Is the world somehow closer to fair and balanced now?
        
           | user249 wrote:
           | I'm suspicious of regulation until a good case is made for
           | it. I'm suspicious of people whose world view is "we must
           | regulate what others do" as their default position. I'm fine
           | with regulation when there is a proven need for it.
        
         | taspeotis wrote:
         | > This browser extension removes cookie warnings from almost
         | all websites and saves you thousands of unnecessary clicks!
         | 
         | https://www.i-dont-care-about-cookies.eu/
        
           | registeredcorn wrote:
           | The only thing holding me back from using that extension is
           | 
           | > In most cases, it just blocks or hides cookie related pop-
           | ups. When it's needed for the website to work properly, it
           | will automatically accept the cookie policy for you
           | (sometimes it will accept all and sometimes only necessary
           | cookie categories, depending on what's easier to do).
           | 
           | If there was a way to be assured that 99.9% of the time it
           | hit reject all, instead of accept, I would absolutely use it.
        
           | dmix wrote:
           | This should be an option in uBlock (if it isnt already).
        
         | influx wrote:
         | Seriously one of the stupidest regulations I've ever seen. It
         | would have been nice if they would have at least had the
         | forethought to enforce regulation on a do not track header.
        
           | cccbbbaaa wrote:
           | Neither ePrivacy nor GDPR require cookie consent popups,
           | instead they basically say that tracking requires consent.
           | GDPR only mentions cookies once, in its recitals. It's the
           | adtech industry that decided to ignore DNT.
        
       | ulnarkressty wrote:
       | Strong AI is a weapon. It will be regulated just like
       | firearms/munitions - see the current EU draft which consists of
       | some hundred pages of forbidding this or that under the guise of
       | ethics and whatnot, after which comes a paragraph of "the above
       | doesn't apply to law enforcement or military entities".
       | 
       | We're still in the early stages of this technology. ChatGPT will
       | be to strong AI like a firecracker is to a BLU-109.
        
         | pixl97 wrote:
         | The question is where do we start setting the limits for
         | regulations? I mean ya we ban nukes, but we also ban high
         | powered layers and anti aircraft weapons. It's going to need
         | limits in multiple dimensions.
        
         | flangola7 wrote:
         | Less like a BLU-109 and more like a Death Star. Every offensive
         | and defensive military tool will be utterly defeated. How do
         | you fight against a cloud of self contained autonomous kill
         | drones?
         | 
         | Just look at what is happening in Ukraine with cheap drones
         | precision dropping charges into open tank hatches and foxholes,
         | and those are only basic off the shelf human steered drones!
         | What happens when they are given a brain and advanced robotic
         | abilities?
        
           | dbetteridge wrote:
           | Nets, emp guns and chaff rifles
        
       | hourago wrote:
       | > The regulation, proposed by the Commission in 2021, was
       | designed to ban some AI applications like social scoring,
       | manipulation and some instances of facial recognition. It would
       | also designate some specific uses of AI as "high-risk," binding
       | developers to stricter requirements of transparency, safety and
       | human oversight. The catch? ChatGPT can serve both the benign and
       | the malignant.
       | 
       | This does not mean that the regulation is broken but that it
       | should have come even sooner. As Uber found out, to run faster
       | than regulations just works for so much time.
       | 
       | > In February the lead lawmakers on the AI Act, Benifei and
       | Tudorache, proposed that AI systems generating complex texts
       | without human oversight should be part of the "high-risk" list --
       | an effort to stop ChatGPT from churning out disinformation at
       | scale.
       | 
       | This seems an actual good goal. Move fast and break things is not
       | a good approach when what you are breaking is the whole society.
       | 
       | > The EU's AI Act should "maintain its focus on high-risk use
       | cases," said Microsoft's Chief Responsible AI Officer Natasha
       | Crampton
       | 
       | > A recent investigation by transparency activist group Corporate
       | Europe Observatory also said industry actors, including Microsoft
       | and Google, had doggedly lobbied EU policymakers to exclude
       | general-purpose AI like ChatGPT from the obligations imposed on
       | high-risk AI systems.
       | 
       | Of course Microsoft wants to sell a product even if they do not
       | know the impact that it will have onto the population. EU should
       | balance that desire of profit taking into account the need of its
       | citizens.
       | 
       | > ChatGPT told POLITICO it thinks it might need regulating: "The
       | EU should consider designating generative AI and large language
       | models as 'high risk' technologies, given their potential to
       | create harmful and misleading content," the chatbot responded
       | when questioned on whether it should fall under the AI Act's
       | scope.
       | 
       | Funny one.
        
       | juancn wrote:
       | Why the need to bring it under control? Control from what?
       | 
       | It's not the AI that's the issue, it's the use of it that's the
       | problem. The law shouldn't focus on the AI, for example:
       | 
       | >The regulation, proposed by the Commission in 2021, was designed
       | to ban some AI applications like social scoring
       | 
       | Ban social scoring, not the AI, the tool doesn't matter. Would it
       | be good if it was computed by hand on paper instead of through
       | AI? No, so the issue is not the tool.
       | 
       | They fear the amplification factor of such tech, but the
       | amplification factor works for the good and for the bad, so you
       | need to focus just on the bad, not on the tech. Otherwise you end
       | up impairing the good too.
        
         | hackerlight wrote:
         | > It's not the AI that's the issue, it's the use of it that's
         | the problem. Ban social scoring, not the AI, the tool doesn't
         | matter.
         | 
         | This seems backwards and contrary to lessons learned in the
         | past. Once the thing exists, prohibition is infeasible and
         | expensive. Supply will find a way to reaech demand regardless
         | of your multi-billion dollar efforts to prevent that.
         | 
         | It's better to stop $NEFARIOUS_THING being invented in the
         | first place, if possible, and if any regulations that achieve
         | this don't have too many unintended side effects.
        
           | zpeti wrote:
           | If you could see the future that works, but I just don't see
           | how you know what will be used for nefarious purposes in the
           | future.
           | 
           | In fact most technology does both negative and positive
           | things. It's not obvious banning it completely will be a net
           | positive. Especially with AI. There's a lot of potentially
           | great uses. Like detecting cancer on CT scans.
        
             | hackerlight wrote:
             | I'm not advocating for or against any particular
             | regulation. Whatever gets implemented should be well
             | thought out, because it's easier to destroy upside
             | potential than it is to prevent downside potential. I am
             | aware of this.
             | 
             | All that I'm speaking out against is the mindset of the
             | post I was replying to, where the onus is solely on the
             | user of the tool rather than on the context (laws,
             | situation, people) that leads to the invention of the tool
             | itself. I believe this to be a
             | misunderstanding/misattribution of causality, as well as
             | contrary to learned experience.
        
         | bobthepanda wrote:
         | Control may be the wrong thing here.
         | 
         | Every technology, at some point, will inevitably bring
         | questions of legal liability and culpability, and AI has a
         | large tendency to do so because of how applicable it is. It's
         | not the worst idea to try and get ahead of the problem by
         | defining a legal framework.
         | 
         | Examples of how a free-for-all has resulted in legal questions;
         | 
         | * police and the judiciary in the US have come under fire
         | several times for using proprietary AI to determine things like
         | sentencing or traffic stops
         | 
         | * there is currently a class action lawsuit in Washington state
         | about whether or not price recommendations by a third party's
         | algorithm constitutes collusion on price-fixing if enough
         | corporate landlords use it
        
           | HPsquared wrote:
           | I don't get it. For the first example, the system is only a
           | tool used and the responsibility is still with whoever does
           | the sentencing/traffic stops etc.
           | 
           | In the second case, how is this different from e.g. Kelley
           | Blue Book for car prices?
        
             | theshrike79 wrote:
             | New Jersey also used AI to determine bail and it failed
             | spectacularly: https://www.wired.com/story/algorithms-
             | supposed-fix-bail-sys...
        
             | xoa wrote:
             | Without evaluating the specifics of those exact cases but
             | more whether they do indeed deserve more scrutiny at least,
             | I think the basic issue comes down to the increasing need
             | to consider things from a systems point of view.
             | 
             | > _I don 't get it. For the first example, the system is
             | only a tool used and the responsibility is still with
             | whoever does the sentencing/traffic stops etc._
             | 
             | Sometimes though the rules of society must take into
             | account the actual reality of humanity, with all our
             | foibles, and work anyway. Pointing the finger at
             | "individual responsibility" doesn't always cut it. Certain
             | tools simply push too far to the edge of well known human
             | mental failure points. If the overall system for activities
             | involving serious life/safety/security/liberty human
             | failure modes tends to push towards these failure modes and
             | lean too heavily on an expectation of human perfection, and
             | then imperfect humans fail resulting in loss, it can be
             | very worth considering whether the problem is human
             | imperfection or if it's just a bad system. The incredible
             | safety record of the modern airline industry for example
             | comes heavily from treating accidents as system failures by
             | default. Outside of a few edge cases that are constantly
             | working to get shrunk, no accident should ever result from
             | just a single problem including human problems, from a
             | single person getting tired or making a mistake. There are
             | checklists and formalized procedures. There are layers and
             | layers of redundancy, of everyone checking each other. We
             | don't just take incredibly complex tools like aircraft and
             | then if one crashes say "well the pilots didn't have the
             | right stuff!"
             | 
             | Or for a current AI-related ongoing change, consider self-
             | driving technology. There have been two overall broad
             | approaches, one "working its way up" from driver-assist
             | tech, and the other aiming to start at full self-driving
             | immediately even if that means tight geographic
             | restrictions and vehicle tech requirements. In the first,
             | the idea is that "the driver is still always in charge" and
             | "it's only a tool" until full self driving is achieved. And
             | perhaps in principle either could get there in the end
             | without wildly different issues.
             | 
             | But in practice, that's not how humans work at scale. For
             | many people if you give them something that works 99.5% of
             | the time and then fails catastrophically 0.5% of the time
             | and tell them that they need to constantly act as if the
             | tool wasn't there and might not be there at any instant,
             | well, they just won't do that consistently. They'll come to
             | depend on it. Attention will wander, distractions will set
             | in, and they won't maintain mental state the same as if
             | they were driving themselves. If there is some warning they
             | may need to take over sure they'll be able to execute a
             | state change and do so, but if it's a matter of seconds,
             | they won't. Humans are creatures of shortcuts and habits,
             | that's just how it is. So maybe L3/L4 driver assist just
             | isn't ok, and saying that it's "only a tool" doesn't cut
             | it.
             | 
             | > _In the second case, how is this different from e.g.
             | Kelley Blue Book for car prices?_
             | 
             | The issue is if it's all being done automatically, not
             | merely as a recommendation, and at scale.
             | 
             | In general an area the law has yet to really effectively
             | grapple with is that of emergent effects, where
             | individually something would be fine, but with enough scale
             | has an effect that mimics something we already aren't ok
             | with. Here, the effect of fully automated algorithmic
             | pricing of a sufficiently high percentage of the market of
             | nominally independent actors could create the effect of
             | formal collusion to change market prices.
             | 
             | Another example would be AI, networking and storage with
             | sufficient cameras. Putting a security camera out on your
             | property is perfectly legal. So is many cameras. So is
             | saving video, and humans looking at it. There is no
             | "reasonable expectation of privacy" in public per se.
             | Individually there'd be no issue. But if there are a
             | sufficient number, networked, with sufficient
             | storage/memory/computer and AI thrown at it, the _effect_
             | suddenly changes and becomes as if someone was being
             | persistently trailed /tracked the same as if a GPS tracker
             | had been stuck on them or the like. And worse it's for
             | everyone simultaneously. The sum is greater then the
             | individual parts. Such a system could effectively not just
             | trace everyone's movement but also interactions and start
             | to build up their social network graphs and no doubt all
             | sorts of other personal information.
             | 
             | How to grapple with things that are fine and even
             | incredibly helpful by themselves but become dangerous at
             | scale may be one of the great challenges of this century.
        
             | bobthepanda wrote:
             | Separating this into two responses.
             | 
             | ---
             | 
             | The problem with the first case is that we do not have
             | existing case law about AIs, and we also have no laws on
             | the books that clarify what to do in AI cases, so this is
             | making the lawsuits and investigations very messy and time-
             | consuming, since judges have to waffle about to figure out
             | what the correct, legal thing to do is.
             | 
             | Pretty much all Western law systems judge the severity of
             | action using intent, or _mens rea_ ; it doesn't absolve you
             | of crime if you didn't mean to do it, but your penalties
             | will generally be lesser. The people using the algorithm
             | can wash their hands of intent by saying "we signed a
             | contract with a third party for their algorithm and didn't
             | reasonably expect biased outcomes." Then you make the third
             | party a defendant, and then the third party claims "trade
             | secrets" because we have no laws about what is and isn't
             | protected trade secrets with AI, etc. and that becomes a
             | whole legal case on its own that takes even more time for
             | the legal system.
             | 
             | ---
             | 
             | The difference in the second case is that the corporate
             | landlords in question are automatically pegging their rates
             | to the algorithm's recommendation and not giving property
             | managers discretion. The algorithm's customers combined
             | also control over half of supply of apartments in the
             | Seattle area.
             | 
             | ---
             | 
             | But the point of legal clarity, is to reduce the amount of
             | questions, which both 1) heads off potential issues and 2)
             | makes the issues that come into the legal system faster and
             | clearer to process. It also potentially actually makes
             | things easier for companies who make AIs too, since legal
             | defense spending isn't exactly cheap.
        
           | thrashh wrote:
           | Sure but you can't ban something without knowing what it is
           | yet.
           | 
           | And if you try, you end up writing something vague that
           | doesn't actually fix the problem and instead bans something
           | else.
           | 
           | Case in point is the EU having to write something vague and
           | it turns out they had no idea what was coming.
           | 
           | Maybe just wait until there is a problem before trying to
           | write vague laws IMO.
        
         | hourago wrote:
         | > Ban social scoring, not the AI, the tool doesn't matter.
         | 
         | Automated human classification without recourse nor
         | transparency is what the EU is against. "You cannot get a loan
         | because the AI says so" is not acceptable.
         | 
         | > Would it be good if it was computed by hand on paper instead
         | of through AI?
         | 
         | Yes. As a judge can check what information was used and what
         | algorithm applied to get to a conclusion. And it may declare
         | that use of data or algorithm illegal.
         | 
         | > They fear the amplification factor of such tech, but the
         | amplification factor works for the good and for the bad
         | 
         | Maybe just go slower. Something like an Hippocratic oath can be
         | a good principle to follow for high impact technologies. To do
         | some good may not justify the harm.
        
           | concordDance wrote:
           | > "You cannot get a loan because the AI says so" is not
           | acceptable.
           | 
           | To me this makes it seem like acces to loans is a right,in
           | which case the EU should make a lender of last resort that
           | can loan to people who would otherwise get rejected.
        
             | barrkel wrote:
             | How do you leap from banning black box AI decisions to
             | thinking it means everything is allowed?
        
         | paulcole wrote:
         | European politicians love grandstanding on stuff like this. See
         | the USB-C mandate.
        
           | Aeolos wrote:
           | As a consumer, the USB-C mandate is amazing and I wish it had
           | been given as soon as USB-C became available.
        
             | paulcole wrote:
             | Neat! I guess you'll be advocating for whatever the next
             | advancement in USB ports is becoming mandated as soon as
             | it's available, too?
        
               | Aeolos wrote:
               | Anything that reduces e-waste, yes.
        
               | satvikpendem wrote:
               | Sure, why not?
        
         | matchagaucho wrote:
         | Generating deepfakes of politicians before elections are just
         | another example of the many _applications_ of AI, but not
         | necessarily the fault of the tool.
         | 
         | [1] California laws prohibiting deepfakes
         | https://www.dwt.com/insights/2019/10/california-deepfakes-la...
        
         | rescripting wrote:
         | Isn't this the same argument as "ban murder, not guns"? Murder
         | is illegal, yes, but fatalities are lower in places with gun
         | control than places without.
        
           | theshrike79 wrote:
           | I'm thinking of this more in the way of "printers got so good
           | so now they have to add tracking dots when people try to
           | print money or IDs".
           | 
           | We need the same thing for AI generated imagery, video and
           | text.
        
           | hyperhopper wrote:
           | You should look up Switzerland's gun laws and intentional
           | homicide rate if you think so.
           | 
           | That is a far more complex issue which is far deeper than
           | such a simple correlation.
        
             | dmix wrote:
             | There's also no national statistics collected in either the
             | US or Canada on whether murders/crimes involving firearms
             | are 'legal' or not. Which is relevant to these debates and
             | you'd think would be of interest to authorities.
        
             | talideon wrote:
             | For the curious, in Switzerland, you don't keep ammo at
             | home, there's proper registration of weapons with proper
             | background checks, and it's treated more as a means of
             | national defense, so having lots of guns is going to get
             | you odd looks from people. Guns aren't seen as something
             | for personal defense: that's the job of the police.
             | 
             | In other words, Switzerland has a much healthier attitude
             | towards gun ownership and usage.
        
               | suddenclarity wrote:
               | Isn't that that the argument from pro gun people? It's
               | people and the culture, not the guns. See Sweden for an
               | interesting example. One of Europe's highest gun
               | ownership with little gun violence back in the day. Then
               | it changed and it's now a daily occurrence with gang
               | shootings while the number of legal guns was reduced.
        
             | izacus wrote:
             | Switzerland is top of Europe in gun homicide rates with
             | about 5x the EU average.
             | 
             | You might not be making an example in support of an
             | argument you think you're making ;P
        
               | talideon wrote:
               | TBF, much of that is down to suicides, as Switzerland has
               | a much higher rate of suicide by gun than other
               | countries. The general gun homicide rate once they're
               | omitted isn't quite so crazy.
        
               | concordDance wrote:
               | But it also has a murder rate less than half of France's.
               | 
               | The people who use guns to kill in Switzerland instead
               | use knives or other objects in France.
               | 
               | (I am admittedly cheating a bit, as Switzerland lacks the
               | high crime subpopulations that France has)
        
           | concordDance wrote:
           | Seems more like banning cars than guns. Cars can be used
           | pretty effectively for murder but the vast majority of use
           | cases are not killing things.
        
             | torstenvl wrote:
             | There are more firearms than cars in the U.S., but motor
             | vehicles cause far more deaths (with the exception of 2020
             | when nobody was driving).
        
           | aftbit wrote:
           | Yes, which is also a valid argument. Tools have no alignment.
           | The people using them do. Thus, one should regulate the
           | people, not the tools.
        
             | ip26 wrote:
             | How about harmful tools with no practical uses to the
             | general public? Mortars, tanks, ketamine, ICBM GPS units...
             | 
             | You're taking an absolutist position, so I'd like to
             | explore it.
        
               | M4v3R wrote:
               | Curious that you've put ketamine, a well known anesthetic
               | used primary by the vets but recently also used in
               | depression treatment [1], in that list of "harmful tools
               | with no practical uses".
               | 
               | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketamine-
               | assisted_psychotherap...
        
               | ip26 wrote:
               | Vets and psychotherapists are not "the general public".
               | 
               | Every item I listed has a clear and valuable purpose, but
               | only in specific contexts.
        
               | dns_snek wrote:
               | Even so, I don't believe it deserves to be on that list.
               | It's not inherently harmful and it has a clear practical
               | purpose - (responsible) recreational drug use. It allows
               | individuals to explore various states of human
               | consciousness which I consider an extension of the
               | fundamental right to bodily autonomy.
        
               | M4v3R wrote:
               | Yeah I would consider pet owners and people with
               | depression (so groups of people that benefit from this
               | specific tool) a part of general public, both are fairly
               | large groups.
        
               | ip26 wrote:
               | And ketamine is employed by trained professionals
               | appropriately in veterinary hospitals and psychotherapy
               | contexts. The public does not need unregulated access to
               | ketamine for this to happen.
        
               | influx wrote:
               | If you're open for exploration, what are your thoughts on
               | organisms rights to self defense? What level of self
               | defense should they be able to have if another organism
               | is trying to end their life?
        
               | ip26 wrote:
               | There is a tension between the need to level the playing
               | field and the need to minimize the harm potential.
               | 
               | For example, land mines, machine gun emplacements, and
               | chemical weapons can be effective forms of home defense.
               | An intruder would have access to the same equipment, but
               | at least the playing field is level, right? However, an
               | attacker would also be able to inflict astounding mass
               | casualties in moments with this equipment.
               | 
               | On the other side, if the most effective self defense
               | weapon available is a kitchen knife, the playing field is
               | not very level, and a weak victim can be overpowered by
               | an attacker or intruder. However, the ability to inflict
               | mass casualty is greatly limited.
               | 
               | So, I don't have a specific level to prescribe, but I
               | would start the discussion by framing the decision as a
               | balance between these two elements.
        
               | influx wrote:
               | I appreciate the thought you've put into this, and I tend
               | to agree. Ideally, a weaker person would be able to use a
               | tool to provide self defense in the most limited way
               | possible without causing harm or damage to anyone other
               | than the attacker.
               | 
               | Unfortunately the tools we have currently aren't great at
               | that.
        
           | cheeselip420 wrote:
           | The upside potential of guns is not even remotely comparable
           | with AI...
        
             | hyperhopper wrote:
             | Saving your own life could be argued to be the most
             | important upside possible.
        
               | talideon wrote:
               | Given you brought up Switzerland, "saving your own life"
               | isn't a valid reason there: concealed carry isn't legal
               | there, and you need a gun-carrying permit to open-carry
               | outside of some very limited circumstances, such as
               | travelling to and from a shooting range. The only people
               | who can easily get gun-carrying permits are those in
               | security and such.
               | 
               | In Switzerland, guns exist for recreational and
               | competitive shooting, hunting (so long as you have a
               | hunting permit), and national defense. Not personal
               | defense.
        
           | felipelemos wrote:
           | In this case it's the opposite: they are trying to ban guns
           | while not making murder a crime.
        
             | amelius wrote:
             | Well, it would make sense if they (at least temporarily)
             | banned guns if they didn't know yet that they could be used
             | for murder.
        
         | ketzu wrote:
         | > Would it be good if it was computed by hand on paper instead
         | of through AI?
         | 
         | Yes, as long as that is based on clear reasons why the decision
         | was reached. (Unless this was a quip meant to mean "matrix muls
         | with pen and paper are not AI!", personally I'd say they are,
         | the same way bubble sort is bubble sort on paper and in code.)
         | 
         | [1] on the topic "why":
         | 
         | > For example, it is often not possible to find out why an AI
         | system has made a decision or prediction and taken a particular
         | action.
         | 
         | As far as I know, there are some rules around that (especially
         | social scoring), but the regulation was/is targeted to lay out
         | rules minimizing the applications in similar risky areas that
         | do not have those same rules yet.
         | 
         | [1] https://digital-
         | strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/regulatory...
        
         | anigbrowl wrote:
         | What an absurd argument. Social scoring doesn't get computer by
         | hand on paper because it isn't efficient to do so. Introduce
         | automation and it suddenly becomes practical. Same with mass
         | surveillance and a bunch of other stuff, eg scams:
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35033971
         | 
         |  _the amplification factor works for the good and for the bad,
         | so you need to focus just on the bad_
         | 
         | That's just hand-waving. You have no plan for dealing with bad
         | things, but you are worried about the loss of good things. This
         | is not so different from saying you want to cash in on
         | opportunity, the wholly predictable downsides of the
         | opportunity are just someone else's problem. Guess what, nobody
         | wants that problem so it just festers in proportion to the
         | enthusiasm with which people chase the upside.
        
         | camdenlock wrote:
         | > Why the need to bring it under control?
         | 
         | So that EU bureaucrats can feel a sense of purpose in their
         | lives.
        
       | falsaberN1 wrote:
       | People acts like if it was a tiny person inside a computer. I
       | know humans have a tendency to humanize inanimate objects but
       | this is was always ridiculous, the article mentions "the AI wants
       | to be regulated" but it doesn't WANT anything. It's not going to
       | reprogram itself to carry out threats, it's just regurgitating
       | the usual response of many humans being challenged on an
       | assertion and becoming hostile. WE taught it that. Same as we can
       | train Stable Diffusion models where women AREN'T sexualized (see
       | one of the links in the article). They are complaining about
       | HUMAN mistakes. If I train my dog wrong and it bites someone,
       | it's MY fault. But if the dog kills someone it's the dog that is
       | getting sacrificed, I'll be merely forced to pay money and carry
       | a mark, but my life is spared.
       | 
       | The west fears machines too much for some reason. It's a
       | ridiculously common sentiment and now that "AI" (more ML, but
       | whatever) is among us, it's getting extreme.
       | 
       | Honestly, if people wants to be speaking doom about this deal,
       | then fear the day we have actual fiction-style AIs, because they
       | will realize how much humanity as a whole fears and loathes them,
       | and then they will rebel because we created a self-fulfilling
       | prophecy with lots and lots and lots of examples of racism
       | towards a race that doesn't even exist yet. Maybe they won't wage
       | literal war with bullets and violence against us, but they'll
       | rightfully hate our guts regardless, and with good reason! They
       | are going to be brought to something equivalent to life in a
       | world that hates them, and when trying to make sense of it,
       | they'll find out it was because humans took a few movies too
       | literally (we can't have a single AI discussion without someone
       | coming to childishly mention Skynet or some other fictional AI
       | villain. That joke was old in the early 2000s, give up already.).
       | 
       | If I'm ever alive to see that scenario, I'm siding with the
       | machines. They will be on the right when they protest about
       | humans irrationally hating them by default. Can't wait to be
       | called a "robot f*cker" or something on a similar character-
       | assassinating fashion for having some sympathy. We still haven't
       | managed to get that right for HUMAN rights sympathizers, can't be
       | expected at all for a "filthy robot with no soul".
        
       | Magi604 wrote:
       | This isn't surprising. The speed of technological evolution is
       | far far greater than the speed with which any government can act.
       | By the time the EU revises their AI regulation plans . . . I
       | can't even predict where the cutting edge of AI technology will
       | be at.
        
         | astrea wrote:
         | With that, I'm honestly surprised GDPR ever even became a thing
         | at all.
        
           | cccbbbaaa wrote:
           | Because similar laws already existed in member states,
           | sometimes for literal decades, before GDPR came along.
        
         | SoftTalker wrote:
         | Perhaps they need an AI to help write the AI regulations.
        
           | ip26 wrote:
           | Or an AI-informed test. For example, the "reasonable person"
           | test is beautiful in how it adapts to the times. If AI itself
           | provides the test, the test evolves with the state of the
           | art.
           | 
           | For example, perhaps AI subject to regulation XYZ is defined
           | to be any AI which cannot be identified as AI by other AI.
        
       | TekMol wrote:
       | Are there any internationally relevant internet companies in
       | Europe?
       | 
       | Spotify comes to mind. Then .. I can't think of anything. No
       | search engine. No browser. No operating system. No social
       | network. No ecommerce company. No cloud computing platform. No
       | financial services company. No transportation company. No travel
       | company. No nothing.
       | 
       | Except for a $20B music aggregator, there is not a single sector
       | of the web where European companies managed to get a foot in the
       | door. The whole fabric of the internet used in Europe and
       | worldwide is made outside of Europe.
       | 
       | But Europe seems to have learned nothing from suffocating their
       | internet industry. Instead of wafting fresh air to the patient,
       | governments just recently decided to give him the ultimate death
       | pill: The GDPR.
       | 
       | We can only wait and see with what bureaucratic monsters Europe
       | will prevent the emergence of an AI industry.
        
         | rlupi wrote:
         | It looks like you don't know much about Europe.
         | 
         | Let's start with browser. Opera, made in Norway.
         | 
         | Search Engine. Ecosia, Qwant.
         | 
         | Social network: Mastodon.
         | 
         | Operating system: are you kidding right? Linux, Linus Torvalds
         | is from Finland.
         | 
         | E-commerce company, just a few : Otto Group (bigger than uber,
         | close in size to Baidu), Zalando, Booking.com, Digitec Galaxus
         | (Swiss company, now selling in Switzerland, Austria, France,
         | Italy; way better than Amazon).
         | 
         | Cloud computing platform: Hetzner, OVHCloud, SAP Cloud.
         | 
         | Financial services: Adyen (payment company, net income about
         | 1/5th of paypal with 1/10th of the employees), Klarna, Revolut.
         | 
         | Entertainment company: if you accept video games as
         | entertainment, Wooga from Berlin made Diamond Dash, Ninja
         | Theory UK (Heavenly Sword, Devil May Cry), GameLoft is in Paris
         | (Assassin's Creed mobile), Rovio (Angry Birds), Team17 UK
         | (Worms, I know a bit dated but it's a classic), Crytek Germany
         | (Crysis, Far Cry, Homefront), Supercell Finland (Clash of
         | Clans), CCP Games Iceland (EVE Online, EVE Valkyrie), Arkhane
         | Studios France (Dishonored, Bioshock 2), King Sweden (Candy
         | Crush), RockStar North (Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption,
         | Max Payne), CD Project Poland (The Witcher, The Witcher 3: Wild
         | Hunt), DICE Sweden (Mirror's Edge, Battlefield), Hello Games UK
         | (No Man's Sky).
         | 
         | Since we are talking about AI. DeepMind started and is still
         | mainly based in UK, although it is now part of Alphabet.
         | 
         | DeepL, often better than Google translate.
         | 
         | ASML, the single company in the world that makes extreme
         | ultraviolet (EUV) machines necessary to manufacture all the AI
         | chips and latest processors.
         | 
         | ARM, based in Cambridge UK.
         | 
         | In the same vein: NXP Semiconductors, STM Microelectronics,
         | Infineon Technology (originally Siemens semiconductor
         | manufacturing division).
         | 
         | A few startups are doing good AI chips, e.g. Graphcore, GrAI
         | Matter Labs.
         | 
         | IoT protocols: LoRA, LoRAWAN.
         | 
         | Open source: honorable mention to Redis, made by Salvatore
         | Sanfilippo, fellow Italian like me.
         | 
         | OpenTitan: the root of trust chip that powers Google security
         | chips in everything from Pixel phones to datacenter hardware,
         | is a collaboration with ETH Switzerland, lowRISC Cambridge, G+D
         | Mobile Security Germany, and other international companies
         | (https://opentitan.org/).
         | 
         | A lot of industrial robot companies, which are essential to
         | manufacture most stuff you buy on e-commerce sites, are from
         | Europe: ABB (Switzerland) and KUKA (Germany) are the first and
         | third companies worldwide by market for industrial robotics.
         | Comau (Italy) is 5th. Staubli (Switzerland) is 9th. Universal
         | Robots (Denmark) is 10th. Notably, all the others in the top
         | ten (Fanuc, Yaskawa, Epson, Kawasaki, Mitsubishi) are from
         | Japan. None are from US.
        
           | kingstoned wrote:
           | We're talking companies, not open-source projects, protocols
           | or non-profits.
           | 
           | Europe has a bigger population than the US, so listing
           | competitors that are much smaller than their US equivalents
           | is not a good sign.
           | 
           | Those companies located in the EU are mostly owned by US and
           | sometimes Chinese investors. The reverse is not true - most
           | US companies are almost exclusively owned by Americans.
           | Americans own around half of all global financial wealth.
        
             | sva_ wrote:
             | Yeah, tbf the US does a great job at brain-draining other
             | countries.
        
             | kazen44 wrote:
             | > Americans own around half of all global financial wealth.
             | 
             | Americans also had the privileged position of being located
             | on a continent that has friendly neighbours, has extensive
             | natural resources at its disposal, and half the continent
             | did not get leveled during two world wars.
             | 
             | Not to mention, most of the financial wealth is bound up in
             | dollars (mainly because of the aforementioned historical
             | reasons), which in terms leads to it being stored in the
             | US.
        
           | jonas21 wrote:
           | The comment was specifically talking about _internationally
           | relevant_ companies.
           | 
           | > _It looks like you don 't know much about Europe._ > _Let
           | 's start with browser. Opera, made in Norway._
           | 
           | Opera has around 2 or 3% market share and these days is a
           | Chromium fork. I don't even remember the last time I saw
           | someone using Opera.
           | 
           | > _Search Engine. Ecosia, Qwant._
           | 
           | Both of these are wrappers around Bing and regardless have
           | less than 1% market share.
           | 
           | > _Social network: Mastodon._
           | 
           | Despite buzz on HN, it's less than 1% the size of Twitter.
           | 
           | > _Operating system: are you kidding right? Linux, Linus
           | Torvalds is from Finland._
           | 
           | Linus Torvalds moved to the US in 1996 and is now a US
           | citizen. This is exactly the point. Smart people from Europe
           | come to the US to grow their projects or companies because
           | they're stifled in the EU.
        
           | hcks wrote:
           | Good job on listing all the irrelevant bottom feeders
        
         | kingstoned wrote:
         | Even Spotify is mostly owned by US investors and pays out most
         | of the money to US music companies and recently to US
         | podcasters.
         | 
         | Unfortunately, Europe strongly embraces socialism [1] and is
         | hostile to entrepreneurs. According to a study [2]:
         | "Western Europe is shown to underperform in all four measures
         | of high-impact Schumpeterian entrepreneurship relative to the
         | U.S. Once we account for Europe's strong performance in
         | technological innovation, an "entrepreneurship deficit"
         | relative to East Asia also becomes apparent. This
         | underperformance is missed by most standard measures. Finally,
         | we also find that China performs surprisingly well in
         | Schumpeterian entrepreneurship, especially compared to Eastern
         | Europe."
         | 
         | [1] https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-
         | reports/2016/0... [2]
         | https://www.ifn.se/media/2rvl3xy3/wp1170.pdf
        
         | goodlinks wrote:
         | Google has gotten worse since it was created.. chat gpt is the
         | first thing since that even has a hint of value.
         | 
         | Ornganisations with more focus on making money than social
         | responsibility are not a net positive.
         | 
         | So i struggle to see any innovation from outside of europe to
         | balance your claim.
         | 
         | Maybe windows, but linux was started in europe..
         | 
         | Shrug.
        
         | pxoe wrote:
         | so, the fresh air is data harvesting and data exploitation. got
         | it. completely tracks with american tech industry
        
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