EUROPE’S DIGITAL INFERIORITY COMPLEX REACHES FEVER PITCH, ANNOUNCES €20BN “CATCH-UP WITH THE COOL KIDS” AI PLAN
The European Union, perpetually the awkward teenager at the global technology prom, announced today a desperate €20 billion plan to build what they’re calling “AI gigafactories” in a last-ditch effort to convince the world they’re still relevant in the digital age.
OPERATION DIGITAL PUBERTY BEGINS
After years of watching the US and China dominate artificial intelligence while Europe focused on regulating cookie notifications and proper banana curvature, EU officials have finally realized they’re the digital equivalent of showing up to a gunfight with a strongly worded letter.
“We’ve decided to enter the global AI race about five years after it started,” announced European Commission Vice-President Henna Virkkunen with a straight face. “It’s like joining a marathon at mile 25, but we’re very confident in our ability to catch up by spending money we don’t have on technology we don’t understand.”
EXPERTS REMAIN F@#KING SKEPTICAL
Dr. Hindsight Obvious, Director of the Institute for Belated Digital Strategies, expressed mild enthusiasm tinged with soul-crushing reality.
“It’s adorable that Europe thinks building some supercomputers is going to close the gap with Silicon Valley and Beijing,” said Obvious. “It’s like watching your grandparents discover TikTok and declaring they’re going to become influencers.”
Professor Latè Totheparty from the University of Technological Irrelevance added: “By the time these ‘gigafactories’ are operational, Americans will have AI embedded in their breakfast cereals and the Chinese will be using quantum computing to determine the optimal temperature for bathroom tiles.”
BUREAUCRACY GUARANTEED TO SPEED THINGS UP
The EU’s ambitious plan includes building up to five sites with supercomputers and data centers that officials promise will be operational after only 47 permit applications, 23 environmental impact studies, and 18 regional dialect translations of the word “algorithm.”
“We call these our AI ‘moonshots,’ which is appropriate since like the actual moon landing, everyone else will do it first and Europeans will claim they could have if they really wanted to,” said one unnamed EU official who requested anonymity because they’re “not supposed to tell the truth.”
REGULATIONS TO BUILD BEFORE THE TECHNOLOGY EVEN EXISTS
In a classic EU move, officials are already discussing how to amend their AI Act to regulate the technology they haven’t built yet.
“We’ve already drafted 1,200 pages of regulations for AI capabilities we don’t possess,” explained Commissioner for Digital Redundancy, Ana Logblockage. “By the time we actually create anything useful, it will already be illegal under our own laws.”
EUROPEAN CITIZENS RESPOND WITH CHARACTERISTIC ENTHUSIASM
A survey of European citizens found that 94% were “moderately to severely confused” about what an AI gigafactory actually is, with many assuming it was either a new type of cheese or an experimental theater production about existential dread.
Local tech entrepreneur Jean-Claude Désespoir was less than optimistic: “I proposed an AI startup last year and was buried under 78 different compliance forms. Now suddenly the EU wants to be Silicon Valley? Holy sh!t, this is beyond stupid.”
According to made-up statistics, the EU’s plan has a 0.7% chance of meaningful success and a 99.3% chance of producing a series of press releases about “digital sovereignty” before quietly being absorbed into a committee for standardizing the definition of “innovation.”
At press time, sources confirmed that while Europe debates the proper specification of their AI supercomputers, American seventh-graders are already using AI to do their homework, plan their careers, and solve climate change while waiting for the school bus.
