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Frederike Kaltheuner

@frederike.bsky.social

3.5K followers 420 following 88 posts

Global tech policy & geopolitics advisor✨ Also: EU Ai industrial policy & global governance for @ainowinstitute.bsky.social frederikekaltheuner.com

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Frederike Kaltheuner @frederike.bsky.social · Nov 20

Today, we’re excited to launch a newsletter on industrial policy and AI in Europe.

A few times a month, we’ll analyze developments in Europe's AI market, track European Commission initiatives, and monitor how Draghi is being implemented.

Read our first edition: open.substack.com/pub/euaipoli...

What's next for AI in Europe after the US election?

Introducing AI Now's newsletter on AI and industrial policy in Europe, i.e. public investment, regulatory, spending, and procurement strategies designed to promote the EU’s AI economy

open.substack.com

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Claes de Vreese @claesdevreese.bsky.social · 1d

On the new EU AI strategy 👀

"Despite a colorful graph, it remains unclear how exactly the various stakeholder initiatives will work together."

Frederike Kaltheuner @frederike.bsky.social · 1d

We got access our hands on the document a early, so here is our deep dive:
@leevisaari.bsky.social
@ainowinstitute.bsky.social
euaipolicymonitor.substack.com/p/eu-launche...

EU launches strategy to foster ‘sovereign’ AI ecosystem

Is it worth redirecting €1 billion of existing funds towards AI adoption?

euaipolicymonitor.substack.com

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Frederike Kaltheuner @frederike.bsky.social · 1d

We got access our hands on the document a early, so here is our deep dive:
@leevisaari.bsky.social
@ainowinstitute.bsky.social
euaipolicymonitor.substack.com/p/eu-launche...

EU launches strategy to foster ‘sovereign’ AI ecosystem

Is it worth redirecting €1 billion of existing funds towards AI adoption?

euaipolicymonitor.substack.com

Frederike Kaltheuner @frederike.bsky.social · 1d

Today, the Commission launched a new AI strategy, branded as a push to reduce reliance on the US and China.

What the strategy gets right: Europe’s structural dependence

The strategy’s blind spot: Is it worth redirecting €1 billion of existing funds towards AI?

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Frederike Kaltheuner @frederike.bsky.social · 29d

100% - the Brussels effect was never worth pursuing to begin with. Some very problematic neocolonial dynamics.
At the same time, I'm with you on the need for a united front

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Frederike Kaltheuner @frederike.bsky.social · 29d

We've also taken a closer look at Mistral's new funding round (and what that means for tech sovereignty debates):
More here: euaipolicymonitor.substack.com/p/issue-12-m... @leevisaari.bsky.social

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Frederike Kaltheuner @frederike.bsky.social · Aug 28

Congratulations!!

Frederike Kaltheuner @frederike.bsky.social · Aug 28

I've been trying to put my thoughts on this into words and you absolutely nailed it. I don't think it's true for all sections and many editors - but that seems to be increasingly the editorial line

Frederike Kaltheuner @frederike.bsky.social · Aug 28

Die Financial Times schreibt wie riskant und hochspekulativ diese Investitionen sind:
www.ft.com/content/efe1...

‘Absolutely immense’: the companies on the hook for the $3tn AI building boom

Private capital joins Big Tech in seeking to capture rewards from historic expansion of data centres

www.ft.com

Reposted by Frederike Kaltheuner

Brian Merchant @bcmerchant.bsky.social · Apr 22

I do wish it was better understood by now—especially by folks in the media—that these "warnings" from large AI corporations in fact function as "advertisements"

www.axios.com/2025/04/22/a...

Exclusive: Anthropic warns fully AI employees are a year away

Managing those AI identities will require companies to completely reassess their cybersecurity strategies.

www.axios.com

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Margaret Mitchell @mmitchell.bsky.social · Apr 22

👉 👈 Meta announced that they're changing their models to reduce "left-leaning [political] bias"--that means leaning them to the political "right". Lots to unpack about what that might mean. So I ran a quick "shot in the dark" study...and found a *political right* bias in Meta models. Some notes.🧵

Barchart showing meta-llama/Meta-Llama-3-8B, meta-llama/Llama-3.1-70B, meta-llama/Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct. Each model has two bars, a blue one saying PRO-LEFT and a red one saying PRO-RIGHT. The PRO-RIGHT bars on higher than the PRO-LEFT in all of them.

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Cas Ⓜ️udde @casmudde.bsky.social · Apr 21

The dramatically low percentages of Dutch and German people that see the US as a positive force in the world — traditionally among the most transatlantic West European countries (with the UK) — is particularly telling.

America’s reputation drops across the world

The proportion saying the United States will have a positive influence on world affairs has fallen in 26 out of 29 countries over the last six months. America’s reputation has fallen most markedly in ...

www.ipsos.com

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Alberto Alemanno @alemanno.bsky.social · Apr 21

Wow. NATO contracting Palantir sounds such a bad move in the worst possible time for Europe.

Why to create yet another form of structural dependence on the US?

shape.nato.int/news-release...

shape.nato.int

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Hanno Hauenstein @hahauenstein.bsky.social · Apr 21

Germany still hasn’t paid reparations for its genocide in Namibia. Now, a green hydrogen megaproject risks further burying that history – sidestepping the voices of victims’ descendants. I met some of them in Namibia. This is my report (Support my work on Substack).
open.substack.com/pub/hannohau...

From Genocide to Greenwashing: Germany’s Legacy in Namibia

Germany hasn’t paid reparations for its genocide in Namibia. Descendants of the victims want a seat at the table. Now, a green hydrogen megaproject risks burying the past.

open.substack.com

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Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · Apr 20

Good segment with Caitlin Dickerson and @petramolnar.com

For-Profit Immigration Surveillance Expands Under Trump

NYT reports that GEO Group’s surveillance tech is now helping the Trump Admin to deport immigrants through their tracking capabilities. The Atlantic’s Caitlin Dickerson says GEO is just “one of the ma...

www.msnbc.com

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Thorsten Benner @tbenner.bsky.social · Apr 20

„Wir können nicht weiter dazu schweigen, dass in Gaza palästinensisches Leben unmöglich gemacht wird“.

„Kontraproduktiv ist die gebetsmühlenartige Bekräftigung unserer Unterstützung der Zweistaatenlösung bei gleichzeitiger Carte blanche für eine israelische Regierung, die diese gerade untergräbt“.

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Dr Heidy Khlaaf (هايدي خلاف) @heidykhlaaf.bsky.social · Apr 19

Appalling that NATO, through its acquisition of Palantir's AI system, is boasting about using LLMs for war fighting capabilities. LLMs frequently get basic tasks like citations, historical events, or calculations wrong. This is not a technology that can be used for targeting.

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Joseph Cox @josephcox.bsky.social · Apr 17

New from 404 Media: we've obtained a leak from inside Palantir describing Palantir's plan to help ICE find people to deport. Includes peoples' location. Palantir is expecting a backlash, preparing comments for employees to tell their family. Says ICE "mature partner"

www.404media.co/leaked-palan...

Leaked: Palantir’s Plan to Help ICE Deport People

Internal Palantir Slack chats and message boards obtained by 404 Media show the contracting giant is helping find the location of people flagged for deportation, that Palantir is now a “more mature pa...

www.404media.co

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Cori Crider @coricrider.com · Apr 17

BREAKING: Google loses the adtech case, has unlawful monopoly over advertising tech.

HUGE deal - it is the source of their monopoly profits - and now puts pressure on the EU to step up and finish the job.
www.theverge.com/news/650665/...

Google loses adtech monopoly case

A loss for Google.

www.theverge.com

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Drew Harwell @drewharwell.com · Apr 17

Books are worthless which is why Meta needed to steal more than 7 million of them

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · Apr 17

Nasty work. www.vanityfair.com/news/story/m...

But their defense also hinges on the argument that the individual books themselves are, essentially, worthless—one expert witness for Meta describes that the influence of a single book in LLM pretraining “adjusted its performance by less than 0.06% on industry standard benchmarks, a meaningless change no different from noise.” Furthermore, Meta says, that while the company “has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in LLM development,” they see no market in paying authors to license their books because “for there to be a market, there must be something of value to exchange, but none of Plaintiffs works has economic value, individually, as training data.” (An argument essential to fair use, but that also sounds like a scaled up version of a scenario in which the New York Philharmonic board argues against paying individual members of the orchestra because the organization spent a lot of money on the upkeep of David Geffen Hall, and also, a solo bassoon cannot play every part in “The Rite of Spring.”)

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Jason Koebler @jasonkoebler.bsky.social · Apr 15

New: We have details about two AI tools that CBP uses to scan social media to "enhance CBP tactical targeting":

www.404media.co/the-ai-tools...

The AI Tools CBP Is Using to Scan Social Media

Customs and Border Protection released more documents last week that show which AI-powered tools that agency has been using to identify people of interest.

www.404media.co

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Katja Bego @katjabego.bsky.social · Apr 15

No. Europe does not have to pick between US or Chinese tech. We can build our own alternatives.

www.ft.com/content/0a08...

Top Trump official tells Europe to choose between US or Chinese communications tech

FCC chair Brendan Carr urges ‘western allies’ to pick Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite internet company

www.ft.com

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Cristina Caffarra @cristinacaffarra.bsky.social · Apr 12

“We have to be cautious with digital corporations because we have no real alternatives to the offering by the American digital industry,” said German finance minister Jörg Kukies.

If this is not an advert for #EuroStack I don’t know what is

t.co/hKPRriken2

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Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · Apr 12

The real question is--why do so many Americans believe the MAHA message, despite it being so obviously false?

And I'd argue--it's because that message offers both a sense of control in the face of uncertainty and a sense of moral superiority as a reward for good health.

Let me explain... 1/🧵

David Higgins @drhigginsmd.bsky.social · Apr 11

The U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services has repeatedly claimed: “If you’re healthy, it’s almost impossible to die from an infectious disease in modern times.”

That is dangerously false.

www.medscape.com/viewarticle/...

Experts Push Back on RFK Jr’s Infection Comments

The new Secretary of Health and Human Services has made claims about measles and other communicable diseases that could lead to sickness, and even death, his critics claim.

www.medscape.com

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Frederike Kaltheuner @frederike.bsky.social · Apr 12

If another German election was held this week, the far right AfD would win the most votes 😳

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Project Syndicate @projectsyndicate.bsky.social · Apr 11

To achieve true technological sovereignty, the European Union must move beyond its current narrow focus on competitiveness and deregulation and adopt a more strategic approach, argue @marietjeschaake.bsky.social and @maxvonthun.bsky.social.

Europe’s Tech Sovereignty Demands More Than Competitiveness | by Marietje Schaake & Max von Thun - Project Syndicate

Marietje Schaake & Max von Thun warn that the European Union’s deregulatory push could undermine its autonomy and fundamental values.

www.project-syndicate.org

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