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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Technology
Aisha Down

A viral doomsday scenario aims to shake Europe out of its AI complacency

European Union Europe United States China Euro OpenAI Brussels Nvidia Oracle
A smartphone screen displays AI app icons including DeepSeek, ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, and Perplexity
AI apps on a smartphone: many experts think Europe is lagging behind the US and China, and the continent needs to wake up to the implications. Photograph: Hannibal Hanschke/EPA

It’s 2031 and the US and China are about to tear Europe into pieces.

The US ploughed vast sums into datacentres and the EU did not. China built robots and Europe did not. American companies “restructured” their workflows around AI and fired people, while EU workers went on long lunch breaks and handed over administrative tasks to the AI model Claude.

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