Scientists Plan Huge European AI Hub To Compete With US (theguardian.com) 69
Leading scientists have drawn up plans for a vast multinational European institute devoted to world-class artificial intelligence (AI) research in a desperate bid to nurture and retain top talent in Europe. From a report: The new institute would be set up for similar reasons as Cern, the particle physics lab near Geneva, which was created after the second world war to rebuild European physics and reverse the brain drain of the brightest and best scientists to the US. Named the European Lab for Learning and Intelligent Systems, or Ellis, the proposed AI institute would have major centres in a handful of countries, the UK included, with each employing hundreds of computer engineers, mathematicians and other scientists with the express aim of keeping Europe at the forefront of AI research. In an open letter that urges governments to act, the scientists describe how Europe has not kept up with the US and China, where the vast majority of leading AI firms and universities are based. The letter adds that while a few "research hotspots" still exist in Europe, "virtually all of the top people in those places are continuously being pursued for recruitment by US companies."
incentives (Score:3)
https://robothutbui.vn (Score:1)
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Digital fonts tends to be Sans Serif. This means glyphs such as one (1), uppercase i (I), lowercase L (l), tend to be very difficult to visually tell apart. It sucks.
Print fonts tend to be Serif -- glyphs are easier to tell apart but they also take up more space.
There are reasons we have Programming fonts [google.com] -- which tend to be a hybrid between Serif and Sans Serif. Why? We need the ability to be able to quickly visually distinguish [atomicobject.com] between similar glyphs.
This is what Europeans do best (Score:2, Funny)
This is what Europeans do best: Plan it. They will have very impressive plans, committees, and meetings. Much more extensive and impressive than anything that China or the US will do. They will translate it into 24 languages [europa.eu], and meticulously ensure that the meaning is exact in all of them.
On the other hand when it actually comes to doing it....
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Perhaps they can get the AI to do that.
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Perhaps they can get the AI to do that.
Add that idea to the appendix, translate, distribute, and discuss!
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CERN [home.cern]
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CERN does research that the private sector wouldn't do.
AI is something the private sector is all over at the moment.
What is likely to happen is that the EU will legislate / regulate to make it difficult for anyone to do anything useful with AI, while the Americans (and Chinese) build up an unassailable lead in the technology.
The US will let companies experiment and then regulate later while the EU will kill everything by regulating them to death first.
Learn from the Past (Score:1)
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I think this scenario is closer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
That is, if the Russians, Iranians, Indians etc all join in.
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They might need to have people working in the EU though, because the EU is very likely to regulate some AI use to protect its citizens. Stuff like AIs making decisions about people's lives, such as mortgage and job applications, is already under scrutiny.
That could also be a problem for the UK post-Brexit, because without regulatory alignment with the EU it will face the same problem as the US.
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They might need to have people working in the EU though, because the EU is very likely to regulate some AI use to protect its citizens. Stuff like AIs making decisions about people's lives, such as mortgage and job applications, is already under scrutiny.
That could also be a problem for the UK post-Brexit, because without regulatory alignment with the EU it will face the same problem as the US.
It will be business as usual - the UK government will draw red lines, will issue lofty patriotic communiqués, will claim that Britain rules the waves - and then will just pull its trousers down and will do as the EU tells it to do.
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By invading the wrong countries. I suppose you could argue that any military system is subject to a percentage of bad judgment, and that dumb mistakes are part of the game.
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For the most part, they didn't ask for our help. Maybe if our military wasn't so big, they'd willingly increase theirs.
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Maybe they believe the USA exaggerates threats; that Fox News et. al. have made everyone paranoid. I won't confirm or deny that claim here, only say the perception exists in Europe.
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Then don't. Let's slash our military. Solved!
Why compete with the folks in second? (Score:4, Interesting)
China has shot far ahead of the US on deep-learning patents [qz.com]
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China has shot far ahead of the US on deep-learning patents [qz.com]
More patents just mean they will lack behind in innovation as they are innovation inhibitors and not much else these days.
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China has shot far ahead of the US on deep-learning patents [qz.com]
Well, sure, they have the computer programmer's motivators [slashdot.org], so ...
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I believe they have patented a technique for sending the magnetic and electrical field information of a photon from one point to another but without actually sending the actual photon itself. However, this method is still limited by the speed of light.
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Russia has their own in the works [bobandgeorge.com].
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You're doing it wrong! (Score:5, Interesting)
You don't need huge institutes and government funding to do AI. The major government-sponsored AI initiatives have been largely wasted, whereas commercial AI is getting serious traction.
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You don't need huge institutes and government funding to do AI.
Off course you do. At the very least for those "innovative" commercial tech followers.
There was a nice program about the use of algorithms in dutch TV about the bias these algorithms get from their historical input. So algorithms were seen as neutral, but discriminated at least as hard as humans did.
What the program forgot to mention is that "lower class" people don't order for these algorithms, and the "upper class" people who do order them don't want to be bitten by them. The perfect example is China, whe
Re:You're doing it wrong! (Score:4, Interesting)
Europe doesn't have the same sort of venture capital culture as the US. Even in London there is no Sand Hill equivalent where you can rock on up with your MIT degree and Tony Robins positive energy and walk out with a few million to start you cat tracker app.
There are a huge number of UK startups and university spinoffs that run off angel money that requires the CEO to periodically attend snooty events with the remnants of Europe's landed gentry, or do deals with dodgy foreigners trying to laundering money. Those that get VC money are getting it from the offshoots of US firms, or even just through US firms directly with Delaware registered HQs to boot. Another approach is to convince some ageing celebrity (e.g. Richard Branson) to lend his name to your idea, so you can list on the exchanges and get a bunch of money from desperate pension funds.
For whatever reason, the USA seems to embrace the idea that throwing $1000 at 20 different crazy ideas is worth it on the chance that one succeeds, whereas in most other countries there needs to be a big investigation and lynching when one single $1000 investment fails.
This is why the EU needs public sector investment for this sort of stuff. In some EU countries the method has actually delivered results, while in others (e.g. UK) I suspect the public is just so conditioned to accept government incompetence that this is just a sort of path of least resistance thing.
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The major government-sponsored AI initiatives have been largely wasted
You mean like all of the publicly funded university research which kicked off the entire field?
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Gov't sponsored research often does kick-start new ideas, but the results are usually public knowledge such that it often doesn't directly benefit the sponsoring country. Any country can use the research results.
Perhaps Europe should focus on increasing and/or subsidizing AI-related education, which includes educating people for private-sector AI work.
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Name (Score:1)
Call it, say .... Skynet.
Colossus: The Forbin Project (Score:2)
Sounds like there might be a plot for a good movie in here. Oh, wait:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
"recruitment by US companies" not that attractive (Score:4, Interesting)
I have worked for both US and EU companies, and would always choose the EU quality of life over the vague chance of some large bonus that US companies try to lure people with. Also, the way that US companies patronize their employees is simply awkward. Go away with your "codes of conduct" and all the other corporate crap!
wow (Score:1)