This sounds like an ideology based reply. Grok is underrated and I think has a better chance of long term success than most. The current growth strategy means (for me) their chat harness is not up to par for serious work.
Their API is consistently among the most used on OpenRouter. While I can’t vouch for it myself, I think this is a decent proxy for capability. You can definitely see glimmers of greatness in their chat interface, it just feels like the system prompts are focused on something that doesn’t interest me.
It's definitely a topic of conversation in Reddit, etc... However I agree that the push to reduce US dependence by EU companies (and countries) is hampered by the fact that US stuff is already embedded (Microsoft but also Google, etc...) and that many of these companies are transnational anyway (very few European companies are solely inside the EU) and finally and most importantly just about every company will choose the option that does the job best for the right price (sovereignty is a distant second for most decision makers).
While few companies announce this publicly, I know from personal experience with corporate clients that many companies are preparing for Trump to use Big Tech as a bargaining chip.
And they should. Because the US is not behaving rationally at all.
>While few companies announce this publicly, I know from personal experience with corporate clients
Well I have even more personal experience that contradicts yours, and this isn't true at all. Everyone uses Claude / Gemini / OpenAI. Mistral isn't even on the table.
Come on, compared to Google Workspace / Microsoft's whatever-it's-called-these-days, the cost of switching from one LLM provider to another is pretty much zero.
Having an option at the back of your mind is all it takes right now, until push comes to shove of course.
Proof: Most big EU companies use Claude or Gemini or OpenAI, not Mistral. That choice was made recently.
Things have changed in the loud echo chambers of the internet, maybe (but not really, since people were saying that EU data sovereignty was happening any time now since 2016).
I consult for various companies and have definitely seen a trend. It's not quite the rupture that some expect but clearly not nothing either. Until very recently, the risk assessment of using US providers was considered very hypothetical. Today it still doesn't feel imminent, but it does feel very real.
Of course, it will be slow and painful and Europeans will need to use their own services for them to grow and mature.
My _feeling_ is that a lot of EU/European politicians has talked a lot more about the need to be independent from the US after Trump threaten Greenland. At least in the nordic countries. Not only concerning data & privacy, but defence, communications, space etc. All areas. The wheel has started to turn. You will not see it if you look around. But in 10 years time, maybe more, Europe will have stopped depending on the US. And that will hit US hard. We pay a lot of money in services to the US.
The politicians can talk, but they needed to set up an environment that would've let a European company have a decent shot at competing with the best AI models. But they didn't. Should've thought of that before being proud of setting up those strict tech regulations.
Not it's not. Most people don't want to be a Nazi. We defeated it once, we'll do so again. This time a bit earlier on I hope.
> Wisdom is preparing for the shift using any legal means neccesary.
Wisdom is knowing that people like you have always been there. There always have been nihilist you wouldn't trust with your kids. And that's okay. They'll just be lonely.
> Morals are a mostly internal issue anyway, not based on solely external actions. You know the whole stealing bread to feed hungry children idea.
People don't steal bread for many reasons. A big one is they want to keep a system alive that provides for them. As soon as that stops, because people like you stop caring, or because they don't have the means, their reasons for not stealing are reduced to "I don't want be caught". Again, I wouldn't trust someone who doesn't understand that.
> What you are doing we teach our kids to be virtue signaling. Nobody is saying or at least I am not assuming you support Musk if you have Starlink. I simply think you have need for sattelite internet.
By uttering a blanket "Everything is virtue signalling" you actually shout "I don't understand empathy" and you're effectively signalling "I can't be trusted" to anyone who wants to hear it. And that's okay. People will just not trust someone without empathy and move on.
> Just like I don't automatically assume your reason for eating meat (if you do) is to show your approval for modern slaughtering practices. Or if you wear clothing... does that mean you support exploitative labour?
No. And that's because slaughterhouses don't publicly advocate for animal cruelty. And clothing brands don't publicly advocate for child labour.
Musk advocates publicly to support fascism. He openly promotes fact-free voices that incite hatred. That's enough for people to stop cheering him on. If you don't remember how popular he was at one point, he will.
It's not that complicated. If you truly wanted to know why people hate Musk in particular, you only need one thing: empathy.
> Also FYI nobody really cares about American policies outside the US. We're mostly busy insulating ourselves from the effects we're perceiving.
The US is making it hard to avoid.
> More European food cause your food is now weird, more Chinese stuff since you don't manufacture much anymore, less media content cause they all want to teach our kids about more genders we know about.
You only need to buy one or two to get it on the agenda, then everybody votes along party lines, on stuff they don't understand. It's not even that expensive.
I am indeed a human. The variable quality of my contributions here ought to attest to that!
My grandfather was a typesetter and print designer. My other grandfather was part of Gill’s circle and his bookplate was inscribed by him. My first and only kickstarter in which I participated was Linotype: The Movie. I am currently reading Jury’s Type Designers of the Twentieth Century. I also have Peace’s catalogue of Gill’s inscriptions on my desk. Justin Knopp from Typoretum set my personal card from his digitized collection of rare founts. I’m interested in type and page design and I do like em dashes.
But I also just really like iOS’s automatic replacement of 2x hyphens with a dash.
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