Software Firm Bird To Leave Europe Due To Onerous Regulations in AI Era, Says CEO (reuters.com) 64
Cloud communications software firm Bird, one of the Netherlands' most prominent tech startups, plans to move most of its operations out of Europe, its CEO said, citing restrictive regulations and difficulties hiring skilled technology workers. From a report: "We are mostly leaving Europe as it lacks the environment we need to innovate in an AI-first era of technology," CEO Robert Vis told Reuters on Monday. "We foresee that regulations in Europe will block true innovation in a global economy moving extremely fast to AI," he said in a text message response to Reuters queries. Bird's operations in future will be mostly split between New York, Singapore and Dubai, he said.
Wow, like, superior, man! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: Wow, like, superior, man! (Score:1, Troll)
Re: Wow, like, superior, man! (Score:2)
They're going to die because they don't close the huge mommy milkers gap? GTFO with this AI-worshipping low-quality content.
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I like a government that puts individual rights above corporate rights.
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I wish I lived in such a country... but, in the US, the two choices seem to be "very much favors corporations over people" versus "ludicrously favors corporations over people".
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Don't forget, corporations are comprised of individuals, each of whom has their own rights, including the right to do business and earn a living.
People don't lose their rights just because they're engaging in economic activities.
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Because you do not follow job offers.
Does not matter which job site you look around, it is full with AI related job posts.
Ofc: as I am old school, I do not consider a LLM an AI (has nothing to do with GAI versus AI).
Bird Bird Bird, Bird is the Word (Score:2, Funny)
They're giving the EU the bird, apparently. /rimshot
Re:AI-First era of technology (Score:5, Insightful)
"We are mostly leaving Europe as it lacks the environment we need to innovate in an AI-first era of technology,"
What the fuck does this even mean? It sounds like bullshit.
It means that EU regulations prevent them from:
1) copying large datasets from the web from training without proper attribution and compensation to their copyright holders,
2) spying on every interaction from their users to sell the details to third parties,
3) creating uncontrolled processes were the AI can take unsupervised actions without oversight or even an understanding of what's happening.
I don't know about you, but I'm glad that this kind of AI "innovations" are being kept in check in my country.
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Re: AI-First era of technology (Score:5, Interesting)
It means that EU regulations prevent them from:
1) copying large datasets from the web from training without proper attribution and compensation to their copyright holders,
2) spying on every interaction from their users to sell the details to third parties,
3) creating uncontrolled processes were the AI can take unsupervised actions without oversight or even an understanding of what's happening.
I don't know about you, but I'm glad that this kind of AI "innovations" are being kept in check in my country.
At this point virtually all the multi-billion dollar tech companies are American or Chinese. Europe's combined startup revenue over the last 50 years is less than Home Depot. The EU's GDP has been Welp, THAT was a big mistake.
If you want to set ground rules fine. But if the output of *your particular attempt* at it is to get effectively zero innovation and declining economic output, shouldn't the conclusion be "wow we seem to be really bad at this we may need to adjust our approach"?
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At this point virtually all the multi-billion dollar tech companies are American or Chinese.
And is there anything wrong with that? Why does every nation insist on needing to have the biggest thing in every given market. You got a big multi-billion dollar tech industry built on hopes and dreams and the rape of privacy, congrats. Some other countries are bigger and better in other things, for example the Netherland absolutely shits all over the US agricultural industry in a per capita basis. Can you eat ChatGPT's output?
Everyone doesn't need a tech industry. The industry is there to service somethin
Re: AI-First era of technology (Score:5, Insightful)
Also we're not talking about big tech. We're talking about a failing CRM company who last year fired 1/5th of its workforce, changed it's name and is now hoping to ride the AI buzzword game. Even if the EU was chasing big tech these guys wouldn't have been it. https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] that's them. It's in Dutch. Why? Because we're talking about a company so insignificant they don't even have an english wikipedia entry.
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Re: AI-First era of technology (Score:1)
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It’s FAR more important to sound right than be right.
Ignore the sinking EU ship!
Get with the program!
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And yet quality of life here is some of the best in the world.
Making the line go up isn't the be-all and end-all.
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It means that EU regulations prevent them from:
1) copying large datasets from the web from training without proper attribution and compensation to their copyright holders,
2) spying on every interaction from their users to sell the details to third parties,
3) creating uncontrolled processes were the AI can take unsupervised actions without oversight or even an understanding of what's happening.
I don't know about you, but I'm glad that this kind of AI "innovations" are being kept in check in my country.
At this point virtually all the multi-billion dollar tech companies are American or Chinese. Europe's combined startup revenue over the last 50 years is less than Home Depot. The EU's GDP has been Welp, THAT was a big mistake.
If you want to set ground rules fine. But if the output of *your particular attempt* at it is to get effectively zero innovation and declining economic output, shouldn't the conclusion be "wow we seem to be really bad at this we may need to adjust our approach"?
Erm, given how tech billionaires are abusing the US at the moment, this isn't the flex you think it is. I feel happier here in Europe that we don't let that shit happen.
Also, perhaps you've heard of SAP (German), Capgemini (French), Amadeus (Spanish), Erikson (Swedish), Spotify (Swedish), Dassault Systems (French), Arm (British)... The list goes on but European companies typically set themselves up for stable, long term growth, not rapid unsustainable growth and usually, a rapid failure.
Americans real
Re: AI-First era of technology (Score:1)
Re: AI-First era of technology (Score:2)
Re: AI-First era of technology (Score:2)
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exactly this... you can see by where they are moving to to see what they are trying to do and can't legally do in the EU.
Wonder where he'll be in 5 years as China steals all his IP, and the US buys out or sues them out of existence. Dubai is just a money laundering front of a country, but that's where he'll get most of the dark money for operations and expansion connections, skirt tech export sanctions...
Interesting that the countries he wants to move operations to are not the greatest on user privacy... so
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It means they want to be able to use people's data however they please without any pesky government protections.
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Every country expects you to follow their laws. That's why they have them.
Like NYC will be any better? (Score:2)
I don't see NYC or Dubai being a hub for tech workers which makes me suspect there is a different reason.
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I don't see NYC or Dubai being a hub for tech workers which makes me suspect there is a different reason.
NYC banks have unlimited I.T. budgets to fulfill their aims and they use a lot of tech, and in many aspects Singapore is the financial capital of Asia since Hong Kong became sketchy.
There's strong arguments to include Dubai in such a shortlist of financial captials, because maybe the point of the corporate move is either access to capital or to blow up the stock price.
A competing and impressive personal transportation business that makes much use of data are the dockable bikes found in many large US cities:
way less worker rights and H1B workers as well! (Score:2)
way less worker rights and H1B workers as well!
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I don't see NYC or Dubai being a hub for tech workers which makes me suspect there is a different reason.
NYC is a huge tech hub, and Dubai is importing tech talent as fast they can in a continuing effort to diversify their economy.
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Dubai doesn't impose an income tax on foreigners working there, which makes it attractive for citizens of countries other than the US.
Of course, you then have to live with the restrictions on life in Dubai. Many people go there with a plan to work there for a few years and save for an early retirement.
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>New York, Singapore and Dubai, he said.
New York: Money, grab dumb funding because we slap AI in the name
Dubai: Even more funding from clueless rich people, just because of AI in the name... and also, tax evasion turbo max pro
Singapore: More funding and hire cheap Asian people, but don't say your workforce is Indian or Chinese... No, say Singapore and all is fine, we can't trust Hong Kong anymore, but we can trust Singapore!! Also, exploit and trash the employees and they can't do anything, you are safe
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Unless you are into it, Dubai is not really a pleasant place.
Tech hubs, existing or emerging are Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Phuket, Singapore, likely Kuala Lumpur. Japan has a new tech worker visa - so has Thailand. Cambodia is easy to get a work permit and set up your own Company.
Vietnam is not super complicated either.
Canada is nice this time of year (Score:2)
Re: Canada is nice this time of year (Score:2)
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Never heard of them. Is this a press release? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because it seems like a press release pretending to be real news.
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We use their services to send out text message from apps and make automated voice calls. That said it was just because they were cheapest. Twilio seemed to be just as good and was what I wanted but the PHB's are cheap here and found Bird as a lower cost option.
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So you're in the same position as that one guy that intentionally used Google Gemini.
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Because it seems like a press release pretending to be real news.
This. They are really burying the lead there. Oooh "Big tech AI company leaving Europe to go somewhere else. Europe's losing jobs! Oh noes!". Except it's not a big tech company. It's a small tech company, and not even diverse tech, specifically CRM software, and specifically a company that only has 360 employees globally having just laid off 1/5th of their workforce last year.
They weren't well known and they won't be missed.
Virtually unknown? (Score:4)
Never heard of them (I'm Dutch). When I google search on "bird ai dutch" all I get are news headlines and somewhere on the second page I find a couple of companies which have 'bird' in their name and apparently do AI things. I'm not impressed with their SEO efforts (maybe they are AI based).
Re: Virtually unknown? (Score:3)
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Never heard of them (I'm Dutch). When I google search on "bird ai dutch" all I get are news headlines and somewhere on the second page I find a couple of companies which have 'bird' in their name and apparently do AI things. I'm not impressed with their SEO efforts (maybe they are AI based).
I'm not Dutch, but doing your search a little differently, I think I found them at bird.com. The "ai" in your search is throwing off the results. Try using instead "cloud communications" where you have "ai" because I looked at the article and found a reference to "cloud communications". I have to ask this - Did you ever see the US TV show (not the original British one) called "The Office"? They have an episode in season 7 called WUPFH.com. You might be able to find a short clip on YouTube from it
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They are a dying company who are chasing trends. They changed their name last year (Google Messagebird and you find the company) and in the process laid off 1/5th of their global workforce. There's only 360 employees, this is not big tech.
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] (Dutch) These guys are so small they don't even have an english language wikipedia entry. No one will miss them.
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They used to be called MessageBird.
Two years ago I selected them for some communication handling via SMS and email. The primary selection criteria was that they were a Dutch company and therefor I could trust them to operate according to Dutch privacy laws.
Oh no! (Score:1)
Please don't show your great respect for your customers and staff by moving to a fucking dictatorship.
If you move, how will we find out who the fuck you are anyway? No-one will ever know, or care.
Dirty, dishonest cunts.
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It's not helpful that they don't say which aspects of the EU rules they are running from.
All of them.
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No, actually if you read them, you'll find most of them are quite reasonable, and have already been copied by other countries (incl California).
The only dumb one IMHO is the FLOPS training limit.
So far, AI companies have only complained about one thing specifically: the fact that they couldn't train models using private user data without their explicit consent.
All the other companies have *claimed* that they were hindered by the AI laws, only to promptly release their models in the EU a week later. I don't
I know what that is (Score:2)
"Cloud communications software firm"
Oh you mean "SPAM software provider"
Companies can do any of that from within AWS, Azure etc provided they have an IT person.
Re: This is sad to see from a great tech hub (Score:2)