About blind optimism and decisiveness
I always do my best to encourage AI to think a little more internationally, but it is a futile exercise. The American signature, in which nationalism and puritanism play a prominent role, is not easily suppressed.
The problem starts with nationalism itself. We Europeans know better than most that nationalism has repeatedly served as the antechamber to fascism. Fascism can be good for the economy in the short term, but it tends to produce misery in the long run.
Then again, there is little point in troubling an AI trained in a country that constantly wages wars violating the sovereignty of other nations, and somehow manages to lose those wars with remarkable consistency, with theories about political tunnel vision.
It is only natural that Americans are proud of their AI. They may not have invented the chip technology behind it, but the foundations of statistical language models are unmistakably American. Perhaps a few imported mathematical prodigies from Asia contributed to the effort, but the final product that is currently sending parts of the financial markets into overdrive is undeniably American.
And they deserve credit for that.
Things are not going particularly well for the average American citizen, who is sinking ever deeper into financial difficulties. Their national pastime of waging wars is also proving unsuccessful once again. Few people are surprised by this anymore, except perhaps Americans themselves.
Politicians from The Land of the Free are constantly boarding airplanes to explain to the rest of the world how things should be organized. Preferably more efficiently, and usually with a detectable hint of xenophobia.
The American who likes to be welcomed warmly abroad will often point at the party he or she did not vote for. Yet we all know that Republicans and Democrats are not that far apart when it comes to launching ill-conceived invasions that invariably end with flattened countries, displaced populations, and refugees heading in our direction. We are expected to pick up the bill, only to be lectured the next day, in suitably dramatic language, for not investing enough in American wars.
It is all a little crooked and a little lopsided, but by now we are used to that.
At this point the reader may conclude that I dislike Americans. I do not.
There is much in the American approach from which we, on this old continent, could learn. Blind optimism, for example, and decisiveness. Those qualities are somewhat less fashionable in Europe because we have accumulated roughly 2,300 years of experience with the unpleasant side effects that decisiveness can produce. Yet they remain valuable qualities at their core.
Americans are also generally warm and friendly people. Admittedly, they can be loud and poorly informed, but with equal justification they could describe us as blunt, cautious, and overly reserved.
For a long time, the partnership between Europe and the United States worked reasonably well. We complemented one another. Each side possessed qualities the other lacked.
At the same time, Europeans tend to keep a close eye on the books. Fewer and fewer people see much promise in a country whose national debt has grown so enormous that servicing the interest alone is becoming a challenge. So while many American media outlets are looking elsewhere, Europe is already standing somewhat outside their field of vision, smiling politely and shaking hands with China and other countries that until recently were considered beyond the pale.
Will Europe build its own world-leading AI industry? Not anytime soon.
Our system of regulation is simply too cumbersome, although there are respectable arguments in its defense. In the end, we may all find ourselves working with local large language models from China.
A little like the way we admired American cars in the 1960s and 1970s, yet preferred driving around in small Japanese ones.