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Step one: air conditioning. Step two: AI superpower.
Step one will result in the collapse of the pension system. We need to first make the pension system more robust before proceeding to roll out air conditioning across the continent.
Lack of air conditioning is leading to massive excess deaths among the elderly during heat waves.

Culling out the elderly during the annual heat waves is quickly becoming a European tradition.

That said…refusing to adopt AC may be Europe’s de facto solution to the pension crisis!

I thought it was was foolish insanity, but now I understand it’s just sound pension policy.

Yep. Elderly life isn’t worth a €2000 AC install. Grandma will just have to sacrifice herself so the pension systems and healthcare systems do not collapse. Sorry Oma.
I have noticed that austerity first economics is correlated with poor economic performance. There is no avoiding change and the question is if nations lean into the change or wall themselves into isolation and stagnation
Step zero: make energy as cheap as possible... no taxes on it
Basically Europe needs to become best friends with China and buy all the solar panels and all the electronics they are willing to spare. But the ineffective incumbent European industries throw rocks into those gears. Even though EU consumers are delighted with what China has to offer.

I think political landscape could use consumer focused political parties. Screw the business, screw the rent-seekers, rights-holders and estate-holders. Best deal for the consumer is king. Europe is first and foremost a market. And our politics should represent that.

> Basically Europe needs to become best friends with China...

China has embargoed rare earth exports to the EU [0] as well as enforcing sanctions against the EU's domestic drone and UAV industry [1]. China is also training Russian soldiers on drone tactics to be used in Ukraine [2][3] as well as continuing to back Russia's position on Ukraine [4].

If Europe wishes to be "friends" with China, it means giving Russia primacy within Europe by giving up Ukraine, as well as completely giving up on European domestic industry.

This is obviously unacceptable for most eastern EU member states.

[0] - https://www.reuters.com/world/china/eu-firms-brace-more-shut...

[1] - https://www.scmp.com/economy/global-economy/article/3351292/...

[2] - https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/russians-...

[3] - https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/russia-ap...

[4] - https://www.reuters.com/world/china/putin-says-russia-china-...

> If Europe wishes to be "friends" with China, it means giving Russia primacy within Europe by giving up Ukraine, as well as completely giving up on European domestic industry.

Absolutely not. China is not a friend of russia. It's just convenient for them to prolong the time that russia bleeds out. The best way of achieving this is not letting russia to lose to fast. Any kind of russian success does not serve China in any capacity.

Europe could offer China a lot to tip the balance.

What you're saying is EU can't be friends with the US because of Trump but is still dependent on the US, it can't be friends with Russia because of Ukraine, and it can't be friends with China but is still dependent on it.

How is the EU not completely boned in this case, being stuck between countries it doesn't like but is forced to do business with and has no leverage do do anything about it as is completely dependent on trade with them.

> Best deal for the consumer is king

Except best deal for consumer is subsidized (aka dumping) by CCP until local competition is destroyed. Next year solar and batteries are going to have price hikes because China finally stopped export subsidies.

But then perhaps if you believe Peter Thiels "Competition is for suckers" thesis then enabling monopoly focus on cost rather than competition is best for everyone.

Dumping is the word used for some other nations effective industrial development policy
Referring to humanity as "consumers" is gross.
So an anarcho-capitalist society?
Nah, we will be fine. AI isn't sustainable, financially or otherwise. It will collapse and take a big chunk of the US economy with it.
"AI isn't sustainable" is a completely meaningless statement but exemplary of the thought patterns of the bumper sticker thought compression of the social media addict.
Anthropic and OpenAI have seen consistent revenue growth, as have their Chinese peers like Alibaba and DeepSeek.

While some aspects of AI are overstated, it has had a very real and tangible impact at least in the US and China in a number of white collar roles.

Additonally, the fact that China is allocating $295B [0] for an AI buildout as is the US [1] and are using it to also help their domestic GreenTech and DeepTech ecosystems means the AI boom is having a downstream impact in multiple sectors.

EU states already missed out on the Dotcom, Social Media, Cloud, IoT, EV, and GreenTech booms at the expense of the US and China. If your sentiment is the norm within Europe, then both the US and China are correct to view the EU states as junior partners. States that control the technological frontier also control their destiny.

[0] - https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-prepares-295-billi...

[1] - https://www.blackrock.com/us/individual/insights/energy-and-...

I'd rather have a world without "AI" then one with. As I see it, the negatives far outstrip the positives.
The thing is, reality doesn't care what you'd rather have, it simply happens with or without your consent. And burying your head in the sand doesn't change anything.

The right attitude for change is to see how you can get to the top of it first, to make sure you get to control the new tech in way that are ethical and congruent with your values, otherwise your rival will get to it first, and weaponize it against you if you sleep on it because you'd rather not have it.

Agreed. https://isaiprofitable.com/
>It will collapse and take a big chunk of the US economy with it.

I got news for you. If the US economy goes down, EU goes down with it, just like in 2009.

As a European I have long given up on any meaningful change w.r.t AI. Imho the average European is much more risk averse than the average American or Chinese. That and a plethora of other factors that have been discussed over and over again, make it unlikely that we'll see things change within the next ten years or so. Only massive and immediate threats (e.g. he crisis in Ukraine) will make people and governments reconsider their fundamental beliefs (and even then the pace of change will be slow).
I am not sure whether an average European is more risk averse than an average American or Chinese. This is hard to measure. But in general, technological progress mostly does not depend on average people, and we have more than enough young warriors to try new things. Unfortunately the regulatory environment pushes them out to North America, where you don't have to jump through so many bureaucratic hoops.

Now the funny thing: everyone I talk to agrees that Europe is overregulated and that the amount of paperwork is unhealthy. But everyone also seems to have their own pet regulation that they will defend to death, and the sum of those pet regulations is basically the entire suffocating code. After all, those papers usually aren't brainchild of the bureaucrats themselves; they came into being as a result of lobbying of special interests, and those special interests usually still exist and are vigilant about protecting their achievements.

I am not sure if anyone, anywhere ever achieved an actual significant reduction of bureaucracy (say, by 30-40 per cent or more) by anything less than a societal collapse or a debellatio during a military defeat, Germany 1945 style. This seems to be the hardest, most intractable societal problem of entire humanity. Not cancer, not aging - we can probably conquer both. But an endless aggregation of more and more papers until the entire machine stops in its tracks.

I just had an across-fence talk with my neighbor, who is a retired teacher. She is not that old, and she told me that she retired voluntarily after the balance of her work shifted to "I spent more time filling out questionnaires and records than actually teaching kids".

Oof.

I think this view stems mainly from the fact that we don’t have any big names like Anthropic or OpenAI, and that Europe is a bit slow off the mark. We do indeed have many promising tech start-ups, and plenty of talent, particularly in the field of AI. However, you don’t hear anything about many of these start-ups, as they often do not work on the flashy stuff. I would even go so far as to say that Europe is generally a continent where many influential companies fly under the radar. We simply don’t have any ‘rock stars’ like the US does. What we can actually be criticised for is squandering potential. Many promising and potentially disruptive developments remain confined to the universities. Unlike in the US, start-ups aren’t so easily set up here and showered with venture capital. However, we are not following the Chinese model either, where tech start-ups are bankrolled by the government - and I think we have atleast to choose for one of these models to accelerate development.
imho the biggest issue is structural - that investment and capital is spread out. Having tried to launch a startup in the EU and failed due to lack of access to capital, we could have moved to hamburg or berlin or london or paris, but not a place bigger than all of them at once the way a startup can in the us moving to san fran or NY.

Such concentration of wealth couldn't exist in the EU, its structurally designed to spread out wealth amongst its member nations. Probably a good thing for quality of life but it definately makes access to capital harder.

> immediate threats (e.g. he crisis in Ukraine)

I have been invited in one of the UA/EU UAV cooperation programs. The largest government body is behind this program. The invitation was a 38-page PDF, out of which 36 pages were dedicated to regulatory compliance and <2 pages about actual requirements for the product.

No, EU will not reconsider their beliefs.

Europe’s biggest problems are a cultural superiority complex (we’re better than brutish Americans who only care about money), combined with deep seated racism (we’re better than our former colonies, eg China), and a heavy dose of denialism (buying cheap Russian oil could never bite us in the ass).

Thinking you’re superior to everybody else and sticking your head in the sand isn’t exactly the recipe for success.

There’s also a huge talent drain: many Europeans who realize the superiority complex isn’t built on solid foundations - particularly in science, engineering, research, and development - leave to the US because they want to be with the best, which aren’t solely Americans, it’s people from around the world who aggregate in the US.

Europe has a brief window to be the new global talent hub as MAGA is attempting to destroy the US edge from within, but Europe is absolutely blowing it with mini-MAGA movements instead.

Europe has a lot to offer, but it needs to get real about where it stands in the world.

As a European, I see the word "change" used all the time as if it is a good thing. Change is good, bad or indifferent depending on circumstances. It is not automatically progress.
>It is not automatically progress.

Irrelevant. The world changes for better and for worse, whether you want to or not, and you can only ignore it and piss against the wind so long before you get wet.

Ignoring, resisting or opposing global change only works if you're THE global hegemon and can bully everyone else to operate by your rules. Europe is not, therefore it can't dictate terms for others so it can't keep resisting global changes without loosing more of its prosperity, leverage and influence to the rest of the world.

EU is stuck in the middle of the race between two superpowers, and if it refuses to take part in the race and sit it out, it will simply become a colony of the winning power(s). It's why the US entered WW1 and WW2 even if it didn't have to. Because if it didn't and just decided to sit it out chilling away from the conflit, it would have missed out on all the major industrial and technical progress the war effort has led to and the USSR would have swallowed everything. That's how it became the world hegemon.

EU on the other hand keeps deciding to sit out most of the global battles and gets left behind with no leverage in key sectors, then complains that its trading partners are treating it "unfairly". Well yeah, when you have no leverage you will only get sloppy seconds, that's how the world works. If you want a piece of the action, you have to get in the fight, get a little bloody, and take what you want, not sit by and expect the victor will share a piece of the spoils with you for free.

> It's why the US entered WW1 and WW2 even if it didn't have to. Because if it didn't and just decided to sit it out chilling away from the conflit, it would have missed out on all the major industrial and technical progress the war effort has led to and the USSR would have swallowed everything.

The USSR was formed in 1922. Up until September 1917 (a consequence of the February revolution), Russia was ruled by the tsars. The US declared war on Germany on April 2, 1917.

> The world changes for better and for worse,

Erm, that was my point.

But I have heard people saying they "like change". I like change for the better and not the other kinds so much.

NB: Europe =/= EU. I am in part of Europe which isn't in the EU.

I just don't think we are able to do things. Language and countries split us apart.

Americans have one big internal market. Chinese as well. Indians - also.

In Europe? We just can't, you need to start in one country, you need to localise your products, then offer support in various languages, and I didn't even start to say anything about various tax laws or laws in general in other countries of the Union.

I believe that's the biggest issue we have and it will never be resolved.

Well India has a diverse set of languages spread across its regions. As I understand it, the degree to which English thrives there is largely because choosing any other administrative language would be seen as oppressive to the other languages. Again, only stuff I picked up from the various Indian colleagues I have had.

Point being; I don’t think that is any different really from Europe. If they can manage, so can we.

True, but they are one country in the end. We are not, and even if personally I do dream of European Federation, I know that this is an utopia that would have 0% chance to work in reality.
> Finally, and in parallel to this, the Commission should build a new relationship with the US. It is a hard pill to swallow: whether we like it or not, in the medium term, Europe will depend on American compute and chip infrastructure to grow its own providers at the application layer.

A very long sounding "medium term".

https://europe2031.ai/
Decisions here are made slowly, with complete information, and agreement from all parties. Once they’re made they’re then slow to change for all the same reasons.

Until this changes I don’t think Europe has any hope of competing with the US or China on anything they decide is important.

Europe has no chips, no energy, no venture capital, and no training data.

It is in fact too late.

We have nice art, though. And pretty old towns. We are well-positioned to be a Disneyland for the Chinese.
Let's let venture capital stay an American thing. High risk, high reward.
indeed this. Idiotic policies and choices around green energy is killing europe, we struggle with energy prices in the winter for heating, nevermind energy for AI datacenters. And why would anyone start an AI company in europe? It's like picking hard mode over just doing it in the US. I honestly, see a bleak future for europe, and it saddens me as an european.
America has already switched it off. Cutting edge Fable being US only was as clear of a warning shot as it gets. Especially considering China will not keep theirs open forever
Nah, we rather regulate ourselves out of existence. Any investment you do, the money will go to paying random taxes and fees to services that make sure you are filling the arbitrary criteria of bullshit. Maybe after that you have some pocket change to spend on your idea instead.

And if you do happen to make a successful company, then the governments want a cut of that too, because making money is a no-no thing.

> you have some pocket change to spend

Bear in mind that at this point you will owe in taxes multiple times over what your whole company is worth.