Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, has two cards to play that might pop the AI bubble. If she does so, Trump’s presidency will be thrown into crisis.
First, Dutch company ASML commands a global monopoly on the microchip-etching machines that use light to carve patterns on silicon. These machines are essential for Nvidia, the AI microchip giant that is now the world’s most valuable company. ASML is one of Europe’s most valuable companies, and European banks and private equity are also invested in AI. Withholding these silicon-etching machines would be difficult for Europe, and extremely painful for the Dutch economy. But it would be far more painful for Trump.
The US’s feverish investment in AI and the datacentres it relies on will hit a wall if European export controls slow or stop exports to the US – and to Taiwan, where Nvidia produces its most advanced chips. Via this lever, Europe has the means to decide whether and by how much the US economy expands or contracts.
Second, and much easier for Europe, is the enforcement of the EU’s long-neglected data rules against big US tech companies. Confidential corporate documents made public in US litigation show how vulnerable companies such as Google can be to the enforcement of basic data rules. Meanwhile, Meta has been unable to tell a US court what its internal systems do with your data, or who can access it, or for what purpose.
This data free-for-all lets big tech companies train their AI models on masses of everyone’s data, but it is illegal in Europe, where companies are required to carefully control and account for how they use personal data. All Brussels has to do is crack down on Ireland, which for years has been a wild west of lax data enforcement, and the repercussions will be felt far beyond.
Grimy
Text wise, there is no way to tell anymore unless the bot fucks up, which happens rarely.
Image wise, I doubt someone has an automatic pipeline where a bot generates pictures on it's own and posts them. What you are seeing are real people using AI to make their memes, or people who are enthusiastic about AI reposting pictures they find. Nothing wrong with that.
There's also posting bots, which should be labeled as such but I guess most people don't. It's just a way to bring content in, I don't really see a problem with this.
And there's vote manipulation obviously.
All that to say that the first and last one are the only problematic ones since it's used to manipulate and sway opinions. But there isn't anything we can do if someone is mildly smart about it and uses a proxy service. Llms are simply too good at making themselves look like regular commenters.
We could ask for ID from every user and cross reference with the help of governments to make sure it's a real one, or have heavy and intense captchas, but who wants to do that?
Put a maximum net worth. Every dollar over it equals one punch to the kidneys.
I highly agree we have to deal with deleted content in a different way. Not only because of the loss of content but also because I think people running bots are combing through their comments once a day and deleting anything that would throw suspicion.
It feels sweeter if I know I'm stealing from Disney tho
Normalize pirating
I guess I'm realizing some of them aren't so bad (Congolese and Canadians) but I don't think I'll ever learn to like someone from France.
I'm racist
People are always looking to blame anyone but the pool. If we don't hold them accountable, they won't stop.
Certain companies are buying up all the stock because it stops individuals from building their own AI capable rig and forces them and businesses into subscription models.
They are using copyright laws in the same way and lobbying so building new models legally costs millions of dollars and open sourcing stops being viable.
The biggest threat to the AI bubble is people running the same services out of their home with open source alternatives for a fraction of the price.