The Next Generation Internet initiative has supported Free Software projects with funding and technical assistance since 2018. Despite its proven success, ...
The reasons for this shift in budget away from funding Free Software and the NGI initiative seems to be an allocation of more funds for AI, leaving internet infrastructure by the wayside. Meanwhile, the EC has thus far declined to comment to share its official reasoning for striking this funding from its budget.
Investing into AI seems/feels more speculative and inefficient. I think you can get a lot more value by investing the same into actual, practical projects. Training AI, and training it well, is very expensive. And the gains or results are not necessarily even predictable, let alone certainly useful or used.
This is what happens when people get to make decisions about things they know nothing about.
It’s like if a bunch of funding was allocated to studying harvestman venom on the basis of a Snapple cap claiming they’d be dangerous if they could bite us versus like, asking some actual entomologists.
Investing into AI seems/feels more speculative and inefficient. I think you can get a lot more value by investing the same into actual, practical projects. Training AI, and training it well, is very expensive. And the gains or results are not necessarily even predictable, let alone certainly useful or used.
This is what happens when people get to make decisions about things they know nothing about.
It’s like if a bunch of funding was allocated to studying harvestman venom on the basis of a Snapple cap claiming they’d be dangerous if they could bite us versus like, asking some actual entomologists.