I'm deeply concerned about Europe's future on AI. One of my biggest worries is our erosion of agency, our ability to stay relevant and fight for our values in a future where AI becomes a civilisationally important technology. Myself, @DadaJudith , @bakkermichiel and others have written a scenario to outline a potential future we worry we are on track towards. europe2031.ai/ Every optimistic and realistic path I can see for Europe runs through a central node - one where Europe has more leverage, more importance and more say. One where Europe grows more, builds more where it matters, and takes ownership over its resilience. Europe 2031 is a five-year scenario of the continent's slide into irrelevance: how AI is driving it, and what can still be done. The co-authors are researchers, scientists and investors who have advised European leaders, co-authored national AI strategies, built and funded these systems from the inside. We have no interest in hype and we deeply care about this continent. Europe 2031 ends with five concrete recommendations: - drastically more compute on European soil - an AI middle-power coalition - labour-market reforms - a bold position in robotics and industrial AI - and a positive vision of what AI can do for society. Europe can still change course if it finds the political will and the courage to engage in the most ambitious political and economic agenda the continent has undertaken in peacetime. I encourage you to read it if you have the time:

Do we disagree over something AI-risk related? Our crux is probably differing assumptions on: 1) RSI/Foom 2) an imposed future framing/model of superintelligence 3) TOC/political sensibilities

The constant decel messaging in Europe is insufferable as an adult, but its effect on kids is worse. As a parent, it's your obligation to counterprogram this nonsense. Show them robots, rockets, and wonders of AI. Show them cathedrals and moon landings. Instill hope in progress.

ignoring the toxic penny-pinching de-growth mentality at play here (which I have come to expect 🫤), discouraging people from saying thank you to Claude feels deeply anti-British. Politeness is a positive aspect of our culture.

just saw a guy at the gym using the display on his exercise bike to watch StarCraft 2. This is peak male performance.

We are doing a debate night at home tonight! This house believes that women have an equal moral obligation to participate in the armed services as men.

Europe needs more of this!

Help resolve a housemate disagreement: Is calling someone a "good politician" equivalent to calling them a "competent politician", or are you passing some positive value/moral/policy judgement?

Europe can be great

I'm excited to share that Astralis Foundation (with Macroscopic Ventures) has launched an RFP on middle powers and transformative AI! We're looking to fund up to $10M in grants on how middle powers can make the AI transition more likely to be safe and broadly beneficial.

All of these seem highly important (and not just because we work on most of them 😅)

I'm finally getting round to reading the @BritishProgress AI strategy paper. No surprise that I agree with a lot of what it says, but in particular its relieving to see GoodTakes on the whole tax-base erosion aspect.

The last two weeks I was a bit immersed in the European and Middle Power AI discourse. One thing that could help: get clearer on what objectives address which consequences by actually naming your worries. A weak European position across the AI stack could lead to severe consequences. How severe depends on AI's future capabilities. Here's a categorization attempt: - Prosperity. Europe might still grow richer in absolute terms, but its relative income declines. The wealth AI creates accrues along the tech stack whose high-margin parts are outside Europe. - Access. Frontier capability reaches European governments and companies late or not at all. Staged release becomes the default, anti-distillation measures limit access, compute scarcity means providers prioritize, or access becomes a bargaining chip in trade negotiations. - Agency. Europe's enforcement power degrades as its market matters less to AI companies. It steers AI development less, knows less about frontier systems, and loses the ability to set and enforce its own rules. - Security. Europe defends itself with AI models hosted by others. If frontier AI becomes a national security capability, Europe uses it on conditions set abroad—and access could be restricted at any point. - Strategic relevance. A Europe that grows more slowly, defends itself less well, and decides less becomes less geopolitically relevant. Alliances rely more on goodwill than strategic mutual dependence. - Catastrophe. AI development could lead to catastrophe through cyber, biology, or loss of control. Europe bears the consequences despite not causing them. Most of these consequences require no hostile intent toward Europe. Compute scarcity, staged releases driven by security considerations, slower adoption, and race dynamics can lead to them on competitive economic terms or US national security grounds.