Thanks, France is a great country which had lot of successes and the myth of the white flag is very boring. It does stand on its own.
That said, I very much doubt France (I’m French, like you it seems) will have a significant role to play in AI. It has not been a country looking towards innovation in a positive light for at least 40 if not 50 years. We were by far the elite in nuclear capabilities with both military use and an insane civilian usage but then the greens came in and we killed our ace.
Minitel was the last time we actually tried to do something relevant on the tech/communication side. When everyone is heralding Doctolib as a technological prowess, you know everything you have to know about our tech. (if you don’t know, it’s a 6B$ company making google calendar for doctors, I’m not exaggerating) It’s a great service but if this is the peak of what you can do…
And it’s not because French people are not capable, (I’m actually regularly surprised at the number of French people in tpotw) it’s because the wealth and investments they can reach by going to the US can’t even be compared. Even the BPI (national investment bank) does not try, it’s mostly giving money to people with contacts from business schools.
Also, the current political landscape refusing to make any concession on our social model and trying to tax everyone more and more every day instead of cutting spending just does not cut it to be innovative. And it’s fine to decide to go another way honestly, France has many other good things to do and sell but France being a significant part of AI in the next 10 years looks unlikely to me.
Strong agree on not expecting France to be a significant player in AI development. However, I expect that France seeing itself as in the race is a big part of the current AI investment push. Also, France might not be in the race, but it could still actually matter whether they have national compute resources and expertise. France only developed nuclear weapons fourth, but it still matters for its sovereignty to have them.
Also agree on the lameness of the tech scene in France. I was working in a world leading crypto startup started in France, and the founder still ended up moving from Paris to London, to get closer to a proper financial district.
Thanks, France is a great country which had lot of successes and the myth of the white flag is very boring. It does stand on its own.
That said, I very much doubt France (I’m French, like you it seems) will have a significant role to play in AI. It has not been a country looking towards innovation in a positive light for at least 40 if not 50 years. We were by far the elite in nuclear capabilities with both military use and an insane civilian usage but then the greens came in and we killed our ace. Minitel was the last time we actually tried to do something relevant on the tech/communication side. When everyone is heralding Doctolib as a technological prowess, you know everything you have to know about our tech. (if you don’t know, it’s a 6B$ company making google calendar for doctors, I’m not exaggerating) It’s a great service but if this is the peak of what you can do… And it’s not because French people are not capable, (I’m actually regularly surprised at the number of French people in tpotw) it’s because the wealth and investments they can reach by going to the US can’t even be compared. Even the BPI (national investment bank) does not try, it’s mostly giving money to people with contacts from business schools.
Also, the current political landscape refusing to make any concession on our social model and trying to tax everyone more and more every day instead of cutting spending just does not cut it to be innovative. And it’s fine to decide to go another way honestly, France has many other good things to do and sell but France being a significant part of AI in the next 10 years looks unlikely to me.
Strong agree on not expecting France to be a significant player in AI development. However, I expect that France seeing itself as in the race is a big part of the current AI investment push. Also, France might not be in the race, but it could still actually matter whether they have national compute resources and expertise. France only developed nuclear weapons fourth, but it still matters for its sovereignty to have them.
Also agree on the lameness of the tech scene in France. I was working in a world leading crypto startup started in France, and the founder still ended up moving from Paris to London, to get closer to a proper financial district.