This is actually at the core of our (EU) problem. Instead of thinking, "here is this new technology, how can we build new markets/products out of it", our industry leaders always think, "here is this new technology, how can we apply it to our existing industries".

You can see it a lot in AI, right now. AI4industry is not where the gains are right now. We should be competing on training foundational models. Once the foundational models from US/China are strong enough, they will do AI4industry and we wouldn't have any edge on them anyway because their tech is more vertically integrated and they have better insight in how AI works under the hood.

There's no moat to AI models so it doesn't really matter who develops it first. If AGI happens none of it matters since it won't be controlled anyway. If there's an exponential wall then everyone will be at it within 12 months of the first person hitting it and then it's better not to have spent the cash pioneering the path.

The long-term idea that the we have to compete claim is based on is like AGI and it's gonna really care what Elon tells it to do. This is a dumb idea regardless of how it fails.

AI models are seeming the ultimate in fungible commodities at this point, why spend on R&D?