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.
The American public, of various creeds and political orientations is as, if honestly not more skeptical of US tech companies, they simply have no control over their government, which is utterly captured by tech CEOs
But conspiracy theory don't have to make sense in the first place.
"Mistral’s platform will support third-party open models, starting with Z.ai’s GLM-5.2. This and future open models will run on the same infrastructure, regional controls, and service commitments as Mistral models, so customers can broaden model choice without fragmenting where their AI runs."
"European Compute Units, or ECUs, convert those commitments into access to Mistral-built infrastructure over multiple years."
https://mistral.ai/news/regional-inference-open-models-new-c...
It’s a little bit like saying “sysadmins need work visas and vetting, but this guy works for free, so just give him root and don’t think too hard about it”.
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.
The EU would rather cruise off into perceived comfort and safety rather than attempt to stay relevant economically and on the world stage. Only when the region is unable to afford its own welfare will it start wondering where things went wrong.
We could rephrase this as "the shareholders aren't maximizing their value and the average Joe doesn't have a problem with it".
A mindset shift away from the very mindset you espouse is what is necessary for the EU to succeed.
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.
While the EU is twiddling its thumbs about copyright, it is shooting its own side in the foot during the most important race in human history.
The pure absurdity of this is a reflection of how the EU routinely chooses short term safety and good vibes over long term prosperity and success.
And as sad of a story as it is, it's nothing compared to what Orange did. It will be a good showcase for the future how business is not the economy.
Everything else you might have a point. The EU behaves as if it has influence over companies abroad. Then its strategy might work and do some good. Sadly this is not the case. Instead we are getting isolated and loosing the AI battle bad while bureaucracy and regulations forces inventors to leave.
The reality is Europe will tend towards stagnation while other superpowers continue trudging on, some with their help of their governments while others, even despite themselves and their governments.
https://www.trouw.nl/opinie/wil-europa-geen-openluchtmuseum-...
https://www.theprincetontory.com/is-europe-an-open-air-museu...
https://www.investmentofficer.lu/en/columns/gregory-kennedy/...
Britain has left it and that's made a negative difference to our productivity. Large home markets are critical, when your two major competitors have large home markets.
Taxes and social services are cultural things in Europe, based on us understanding what a good way to use the wealth technology has given is. America understands this as well - it spends more on state healthcare than Europe does (yes, PPP adjusted), just not universally available.