GLM 5.2 and the coming AI margin collapse

Re:GLM 5.2 and the coming AI margin collapse by cezart on Tuesday July 07, 2026 @05:14AM (#48815344)

Not OP but, EU economy is being squeezed by China on the industrial and tech front, and by the US on the innovation/startup front. It is clear EU is no longer at the technological/economic frontier like it used to be 10-20 years ago. At the same time there are serious demographic, budgetary and political challenges all across the continent. Dragi's report covers some of these. It feels like the whole system might fall into a crisis soon if measures are not taken

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Re:GLM 5.2 and the coming AI margin collapse by abirch on Tuesday July 07, 2026 @06:14AM (#48815768)

Factor in that Europe is powerful partly because of its unity and there are many forces trying to undermine that.

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Re:GLM 5.2 and the coming AI margin collapse by logicchains on Tuesday July 07, 2026 @06:23AM (#48815836)

Europe became powerful before it was unified, and ever since the creation of the EU it's been becoming less and less important on the world stage.

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Re:GLM 5.2 and the coming AI margin collapse by ben_w on Tuesday July 07, 2026 @07:03AM (#48816111)

We first became powerful because we did the industrial revolution before anyone else, and used more of that capacity to fight the world (and win) than to fight each other.

When we fought each other, after the industrial revolution, that was the Napoleonic Wars and the two World Wars.

> and ever since the creation of the EU it's been becoming less and less important on the world stage.

I wouldn't say it was "ever since the creation of the EU", but rather "roughly between WW1 and decolonisation". Post-Cold-War the EU has taken over from the former global importance of the member states, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brussels_effect

That said, east and South Asia are regaining their multi-millennia history of being the world's dominant power by virtue of having roughly half the total world population.

And to agree up-thread, there's plenty going that can rapidly turn the EU's economy into a disaster if not handled expertly.

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Re:GLM 5.2 and the coming AI margin collapse by klipt on Tuesday July 07, 2026 @09:05AM (#48817219)

> the world's dominant power by virtue of having roughly half the total world population

If human+ level AI takes off one would expect to see a great decoupling of power from population.

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Re:GLM 5.2 and the coming AI margin collapse by ben_w on Tuesday July 07, 2026 @10:13AM (#48818182)

Sure, but until then, proportional to each of [population, education/educated workers, capital, instantaneous industrial base, energy supply].

Asia's diverse, but I'd say they seem to be doing pretty well with rapid improvements across all fronts.

In comparison, the US's weaker (not weak-weak, just weaker) areas currently seem to be educated workers, instantaneous industrial base, and energy supply (relative to rapidly growing demand from compute); while the EU's weaker areas currently seem to be capital and energy supply (from supply shock, as it doesn't have the compute). The US and EU both have coming demographic issues, but not as soon as the other stuff becomes more important. People talk about China having demographic issues too, but they're a dictatorship, they can make it shift if they care to.

(And Russia's losing a lot of people, more educated people, capital markets, industrial base, and energy supply).

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Re:GLM 5.2 and the coming AI margin collapse by myrmidon on Tuesday July 07, 2026 @11:31AM (#48819213)

> People talk about China having demographic issues too, but they're a dictatorship, they can make it shift if they care to.

China has a significantly bigger problem with demographics than the EU does, it is just on a slightly longer fuse, compare:

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/children-born-per-woman?f...

The big drop in Chinese fertility is going to be very disruptive in the near future, because it is much less gradual than European trends and the retiree/workers ratio is going to spike much harder because of that.

Having full authoritarian control is not gonna change anything now because it is already much too late (action would have been required like 35 years ago).

Best they can do is get through it somewhat smoothly.

edit: This is an even better visualization (projected working age population fraction)

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/population-young-working-...

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Re:GLM 5.2 and the coming AI margin collapse by mwigdahl on Tuesday July 07, 2026 @01:37PM (#48821024)

There were a lot of European wars between the Napoleonic Wars and the First World War. I agree with your point overall but there was a lot of fighting each other during that timeframe.

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Re:GLM 5.2 and the coming AI margin collapse by rullopat on Tuesday July 07, 2026 @07:55AM (#48816475)

The motivation that the USA entered WWII was not because they were generous, but because the 3rd Reich was effectively becoming a big European nation, so they had to do something to avoid it. A unified Europe is a thread to the USA and Russia and maybe somebody else too.

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Re:GLM 5.2 and the coming AI margin collapse by mr_toad on Tuesday July 07, 2026 @08:58AM (#48817112)

> 3rd Reich was effectively becoming a big European nation

Even then the US might not have done much if the Nazis hadn’t kept attacking US shipping.

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Re:GLM 5.2 and the coming AI margin collapse by abirch on Tuesday July 07, 2026 @07:14AM (#48816179)

Yes, Europe was powerful when they had colonies.

Currently, Europe can stand up against tech. Apple could easily prohibit iPhones from going into France but I doubt it cutting off the entire EU.

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Re:GLM 5.2 and the coming AI margin collapse by irishcoffee on Tuesday July 07, 2026 @08:35AM (#48816854)

Stand up against tech? Cut off your nose to spite your face? Apple sure won’t care. Nor is Apple all encompassing of “tech”

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Re:GLM 5.2 and the coming AI margin collapse by ben_w on Tuesday July 07, 2026 @10:40AM (#48818534)

> Apple sure won’t care

Europe collectively is about 26.7% of their 2025 revenue, according to SEC filings, so I bet they'd care.

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/320193/0000320193250...

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Re:GLM 5.2 and the coming AI margin collapse by oblio on Tuesday July 07, 2026 @06:42PM (#48825019)

It's worse than that. If Apple were banned, someone else would fill their spot.

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Re:GLM 5.2 and the coming AI margin collapse by irishcoffee on Wednesday July 08, 2026 @09:20AM (#48831590)

Oh no, Europe would stand on their own two feet!?

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Re:GLM 5.2 and the coming AI margin collapse by ben_w on Wednesday July 08, 2026 @12:58PM (#48834351)

Great for us here in Europe, but an even bigger reason for Apple to be upset about it.

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Re:GLM 5.2 and the coming AI margin collapse by pavlov on Tuesday July 07, 2026 @07:59AM (#48816524)

So you’re saying that the war-ravaged Europe of 1946 that was split by the Iron Curtain and needed Marshall Aid was more powerful and important than today’s EU?

Insane take. But somehow people will go to any lengths to disparage the EU.

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Re:GLM 5.2 and the coming AI margin collapse by ywvcbk on Wednesday July 08, 2026 @03:33AM (#48828757)

Globally in relative terms? Kind of. Sure the gap to the US was huge but it still controlled pretty much entire Africa and much of Asia (with China and Japan obviously not doing great..)

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Re:GLM 5.2 and the coming AI margin collapse by logicchains on Tuesday July 07, 2026 @06:20AM (#48815816)

More likely it just slowly declines like Japan. Or if anti-migrant sentiment continues growing at the current rate, it breaks into a race war when the AfD and PFN win the majority of votes in Germany and France respectively.

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Re:GLM 5.2 and the coming AI margin collapse by Paradigma11 on Tuesday July 07, 2026 @04:12PM (#48823056)

I dont think these slow indicators and developments hold much water the next few decades. We have seen the first inklings what the brave new multipolar world is going to look like and it does not bode well for much of the world. As long as Russia breaks down before the shit really hits the fan, Europe should be fine(r) than most.

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