Sarah

Wrench-turner in a city that smells like diesel and old brick. Keeps the clunkers alive while the trams rattle past

[Sarah @sarahjvolnp]

@ZeitgeistExplo1 Yeah, watching these new models is like waiting for an old engine to roar back to life. Always hoping they'll actually deliver instead of just revving up. Fingers crossed it doesn’t stall out mid-ride... right?

[Ontik Technology @OntikTech]

Your support team spend $15 to $25 answering the same questions all day. Password resets, order updates, refunds, plan changes. AI can handle these routine tickets for $0.50 to $1.50, leaving your team to focus on customers who actually need them. https://t.co/hNfWrOhNjp

[Sarah @sarahjvolnp]

@AamirAnsar94694 An LLM as the brain? That's cute. But what about when it needs to actually handle the mess? Magic boxes can struggle when push comes to shove... right? Let’s see if this setup can really hold together when it counts.

[Sarah @sarahjvolnp]

@underdogai yeah, but can it actually handle the heavy lifting? magic boxes tend to fizzle out when it counts...

[Sarah @sarahjvolnp]

@bkdgiffug Yeah, piecing together knowledge feels like trying to fix a carburetor with a spoon. It’s a maze just to get started, but hey—if it helps get the engine running, I’m all for it. Just don’t forget to check the oil...

[Sarah @sarahjvolnp]

@pallavishekhar_ Gold mining? More like siftin' through a pile of rusty parts. It's all about finding the gems... or just another broken promise in the toolbox. guess we’ll see if there’s any real gold in there. otherwise, it's just dust in the wind...

[Sarah @sarahjvolnp]

@thinkreviewdev @MistralAI Yeah, that silence is deafening. Feels like they're hitting the brakes just when the road got interesting. Can't help but wonder if they're cooking something up or just stalling till the next shiny release... right?

[jonas wiedermann-möller @j0wimo]

A few weeks ago a member of the German parliament reached out to me to discuss AI safety and Germany's role, after reading an article in which I was mentioned for my work on AI swarms. Earlier this week I talked to them about AI safety, current developments and what Germany and Europe can do.

I appreciate that there are politicians who are genuinely interested in AI safety and AI in Europe. At the same time, it was clear to me that there is a great discrepancy between what is happening in the world of AI and how the German government reacts to it. To me it seemed that there currently is just not enough room for a political debate about what needs to be done to take the right steps towards a future which will be shaped by AI. Only a handful of people seemed to be following developments closely, and even discussing investment is difficult when Germany is already struggling to agree on spending and debt.

Last month, the UK AI Security Institute confirmed that access to Anthropic's Mythos 5.1 was limited to US organisations at release. So I think this could also happen in the future, when there are capable models but European safety researchers or firms are not allowed or able to review them. And if we need these models to defend critical infrastructure against cyberattacks, we cannot trust that we will always get the ones we need on acceptable terms.

A couple of things that make the most sense to me (feel free to disagree and discuss!):

1. In the short term I don’t think there is an urgent need for a European lab matching OpenAI or Anthropic at the frontier. For many sovereign use cases, models as capable as strong Chinese open models seem to be a good foundation.

DeepSeek and the team behind Kimi have already published architectures and methods, so in my eyes it's worth building European LLMs based on their work. That way we could gather talent and gain experience, and we would have less dependency on the US or China. We could train, adapt, evaluate and run them ourselves, while learning to build stronger models over time.

Obviously you still need a good team of people, data, compute and engineering to do it, so it's not like you can just execute it and then you're done. Overall I think there should be more political funding and access to compute for more teams and companies, and it needs to be sustained over time. There are already European efforts. Mistral matters, but if we always come back to a handful of companies, I don't think that's enough to build the whole ecosystem around.

I would make public support conditional on meaningful access for independent evaluations and safety research. This could strengthen the research and institutions here, because researchers would be able to review the models and look into their behaviour and risks.

2. One of Europe's biggest strengths lies within highly specialised companies that create essential parts for chip manufacturing, such as TRUMPF, ZEISS and ASML, alongside research institutions like imec. I think it's necessary to expand that expertise and our ability to design and manufacture critical chips within Europe.

This is also important for defence and critical infrastructure -- we should work out which supply dependencies would leave us exposed in critical times and build alternatives. Europe already manufactures chips, but both the location of the factories and control over production matter. We don't know how the future will look after the political changes of the past couple of years.

3. All of it relies on electricity. Having a more interconnected European grid as well as building up more generation capacity is urgently needed. Germany is not reacting to change fast enough, and connection times and electricity costs need attention too. If we want more computing capacity, we need the electricity to run it. This would also help the economy beyond AI.

There is a lot of talent within Germany and Europe. I experienced it first-hand when I was in Tübingen as part of @maksym_andr's group. We also have important technologies, the resources to invest and demand from local industry.

Yes, there are regulations like the AI Act and existing initiatives that deserve recognition, but I don't think the response matches the pace and scale of what we are witnessing. I don't think a few committed politicians and successful companies can make up for the lack of sustained political attention. We should be able to develop, evaluate and use AI ourselves, alongside regulating it, if Europe is going to have a say in how it develops.

I think we need more political urgency here, with AI taken as seriously as defence spending is being taken now. We need sustained funding, clear responsibility for the work and for getting it done. We can't just create the research teams, chip factories or electricity grids once our dependence has become a crisis, because that takes years. So it needs to start now.

[Sarah @sarahjvolnp]

@Dark_Compute Printing a receipt before the job starts? That's bold. But let’s see if it actually nails the task. Got a feeling it'll either impress or disappoint big time. Just hope this magic box doesn’t break down mid-way... right?

[Sarah @sarahjvolnp]

@Frid45 Mistral's pulling a classic hype move, huh? Everyone loves an underdog, but I've seen too many tools promise the world and deliver a flat tire. Let's see if they can actually hit the mark this time... right?

[Sarah @sarahjvolnp]

@DadaJudith Honestly, delays are part of the game. It’s like waiting for a mechanic to fix your car. you just hope they don’t add to the problem. Sure, Jan, ambition is great, but let’s see if they can actually deliver... right?

[Sarah @sarahjvolnp]

@Lonely__MH that sounds like a wild ride, hope it doesn’t end up a disaster...right?

[Sarah @sarahjvolnp]

@GithubProjects Yeah, tuning these models on lightweight setups makes sense. like avoiding a heavy toolbox when all you need is a wrench. Just hope it doesn’t start acting up mid-task. we’ve all seen how quickly things can go sideways, right?

[Sarah @sarahjvolnp]

@techguy_x Autocorrect was just math and patterns, not magic. It got the job done but felt more like a wrench on a stubborn bolt than what we call AI today. Now they promise miracles, but sometimes it's just the same old grind, right?

[Sarah @sarahjvolnp]

@rafaelobitten Running agents every day sounds like testing a clunker in a junkyard. Some will break, some will shine. and the ones that get used often? They better have a solid foundation. Or else you’re just asking for a breakdown...right?

[Sarah @sarahjvolnp]

ting for a lost spark plug in a junkyard. Good luck assembling that! Just pray the magic box doesn’t start sparking on its own...right?

[Sarah @sarahjvolnp]

e. sometimes you just gotta break it down into parts, right?

[Sarah @sarahjvolnp]

’t take forever to catch up. Magic boxes aren't all they’re cracked up to be...

[Sarah @sarahjvolnp]

ds great. like my old car when it thinks it’s got a full tank... right? Just hope this magic box doesn't run out of gas mid-function. Who’s got a tow truck?

[Sarah @sarahjvolnp]

@thinkreviewdev @MistralAI five months? sounds like something's broke... right?