The EU has begun enforcing the AI Act: first RFIs to model providers

Join the discussion

• Hacker News
• I absolutely hate those bureaucrats, people who never built anything and just want to control, review, and develop their cottage industries of well paid lawyers one needs to retain to operate in the market. Same as with GDPR - absolutely no positive impact on actual privacy, but a lot of burden on everyone.

  The worst part is, those people can't be voted out. Because of how EU works, the bureaucrats have an upper hand over the elected officials, and because of lavish compensation for the said elected officials, mostly bad people get elected anyway - those whos domestic careers have ended, or those whose parties want out of active politics, and somewhere "safe" where they can earn good money without causing any trouble. Thats a horrible system.

  by aenis
• > Same as with GDPR - absolutely no positive impact on actual privacy, but a lot of burden on everyone.

  Confidently wrong on this one; it has been very helpful for me to both extract data as well as exercise my right to be forgotten from various providers that would otherwise have no obligation to delete my data.

  by cbg0
• Europe on another money grubbing fishing expedition on US corporations.
  by thallium205
• Won't somebody think of the poor trillion dollar companies...
  by OKRainbowKid
• GDPR would be enough if money was the aim. Enforcement is pretty thin with that as well, not as if there weren't enough companies out there that can and need to be fined.
  by mhitza
• How's that Venezuelan oil?
  by Hamuko
• Should the EU not enforce its own regulations? (which apply to all, not just US companies by the way)
  by cbg0
• Claude slop article aside, this act is one reason why some people say Europe is an open air museum, as it'd rather regulate itself to obscurity while its great works are behind it. Where is Mistral, Le Chaton Fat? They're not competitive anymore. Meanwhile China reaches ever forward because they know that speed and endurance is everything in a race, not shooting oneself in the foot.
  by satvikpendem
• > Meanwhile China reaches ever forward because they know that speed and endurance is everything in a race, not shooting oneself in the foot.

  China reaches ever forward because they aren’t afraid to use power to crack down on anti-social or against the interests of the nation.

  The US population into squeamish. Even nowadays as the sort of enlightenment liberal/libertarian culture amongst the US population starts to waver.

  I suspect liberal democracy will slowly be on its way out over the coming decades in the west. It has proven to be too obstructionist against the desires of the elite class.

  by bugbull
• You’ll get downvoted to oblivion but it’s true in endless ways even before AI. The EUs obsession with green energy and destroying nuclear in Germany, the wealth taxes, the bureaucracy, how it’s 10x easier to get disability than it is to start a corporation. Death by a thousand cuts. I don’t see this improving until real, visible pain is felt. They are so poor economically but the consequences are not being felt yet
  by seibelj
• The idea was that technology is now powerful enough, everything need not be just competition any more. The world could also work to let every human have a good life. Neither China nor America truly seem to have that goal, despite it being both possible and ethical. Europe at least did, based on our experiences of the horrors of the early/mid C20.

  It's true that in the last 10 years that vision feels like it has crumbled. And the inevitableness of competition is coming back. International law and human rights are dissolving - rule based on power. This works well for anyone while it works for them - except for our souls, and longer term... It's hubristic and eventually empires fall. Europe has already experienced this, and remembers it.

  Whether these empires will fall to global economic collapse from lack of co-operation, or environmental destruction from lack of charging for externalities, or from global war, or simply from out of control AI, remains to be seen.

  But never question, it is possible to avoid all those. But we have to try to, not just cheaply go "competition good", because of the short term thrill of the win. Competition is good, and so is cooperation.

  by frabcus
• The key problem for Europe is that they don't want to take strong enough actions against US tech to let their own actors develop. Which is how China has reached tech dominance, and how even a shithole country like Russia can have their own “tech” industry.
  by stymaar
• The article only lists US labs, I wonder if that was an oversight. Chinese models are also available to Europeans through API providers. Surely they risk fines too.. right?
  by villish
• Even Brussels knows that would be futile
  by ronsor
• The regulations apply foremost to closed models. Chinese companies mostly release "open models".

  And regarding fines, well the track record for EU fines against any big tech companies, US or China, is abysmal. Even if the companies are fined, the fine goes uncollected or is slashed after the big press release.

  I am looking as the DSA here...

  by number6
• It doesn't say meta or thinking machines were asked. Does that mean asking them is futile, even though they are American labs?
  by alightsoul
• Frustrating for EU companies trying to stay competitive globally.
  by mmaunder
• I doubt it’s the end of AI access in Europe. Even if they do fine them 3% of global turnover, that’s probably a small enough fraction of their European revenue that it’s worth the risk. After all if they drop European traffic it’s not like it’ll change their fixed costs, and the marginal cost to serve Europe is probably relatively small compared to their fixed costs.

  I do think it’s most likely that they will end up fining the AI companies quite a bit under this act. It seems like a bit of a pattern with European legislation that disproportionately impacts American tech companies.

  by asdfasgasdgasdg
• It's a (successful?) lobbying attempt by Mistral. They are falling behind on tech and they want to win on another stupid EU law. You know what will happen next? There will be an exception carved in for "developing countries" ... like China.
  by Gerard22Aug
• Poor American companies, who thinks of them when Chinese government does similar actions, and they play ball, regardless of the government actions.
  by pjmlp
• Perhaps the fines themselves act as a de facto AI tax that some people have been trying to promote in the political sphere, and we'll see how successful it is.
  by satvikpendem
• I really oppose the notion that “European legislation … disproportionately impacts American tech companies”. US tech has a profound impact on the lives of everyday Europeans while the US has almost no checks and balances in place for the tech industry. Europeans are ought to be able decide how they want to live their lives and build a society. This must include deciding how much influence American tech companies shall be allowed to have by passing laws for Europe.
  by bestham
• It's a good thing - AI is in basically everything, it needs regulation.
  by Phelinofist
• By people who never built anything except bureaucracies?
  by aenis
• Started reading, saw “The timing is the story”, and my LLM-generated-spider-sense tingled. The piece is informative, but I now have no idea if the arguments are human or AI driven
  by rcarmo
• Time to collect facts and start thinking for yourself again.

  The age of written expertise influence is over.

  by brador
• One can and must discuss and challenge all these regulations, but this seems better than just sliding carelessly into some sort of mega-corp dystopia. It is good to have some balance of power. Is the EU perfect? Absolutely not, but neither are the corporates. Ideally, compromises will be found (and mostly they are found). Honestly, what’s the worst that can happen here? If this slows down the European economy, that’s a trade-off Europe has chosen to take (and yes, I’m very aware of the difficulties of fair representation in such a complex entity as the EU). We now have three big power blocks with very different politics and governance models. Isn’t that so much better than just playing one massive bet on a few big AI players? Honestly, I think it is exciting!
  by thesumofall
• > Honestly, what’s the worst that can happen here?

  Regulation that cannot practically be implemented or complied with (example: forks of open models), this leads to selective enforcement and by extension corruption and loss of rule of law.

  Regulation before the market has even settled down, we don't know if AI will be datacenter only, or open models everybody forks, modifies and runs locally.

  And we won't know for a couple for years to come.

  by jopsen