AFAIK, things like specific the text and data mining (TDM) exceptions would allow you to even train on copyrighted materials without permission in certain cases, in the example of LLMs.
Mistral also seems to be making progress, and I'm not aware of any African, South American or Australian efforts that are further ahead, so while it might not be number 1, Europe is at least not last.
Siemens, Bosch, Mercedes-Benz, etc. etc. were innovative startups once that defined their industries and they put the foundations of the high standard of living that you enjoy now. Where are the similar European innovations of today?
Well, your argument was that it wasn't possible, so at least we both agree now that you were wrong there.
> they put the foundations of the high standard of living that you enjoy now.
Again, the crux of the argument is that I believe our institutions and governments are the reason we have high standard of living, not because there was three German companies who were innovative ~100-200 years ago.
I don't even understand how the innovations of those companies are related to the quality of life in Sweden, for example, but I think we've lost the thread in this discussion a while ago so maybe better to not continue at all.