About us

Our initiative

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is profoundly transforming our lifestyles, gradually inserting itself at each level of the human ecosystem. Like every technological revolution, it is disrupting our moral balance, which is destabilized by a profusion of new opportunities with uncontrolled consequences.

This technology is already ubiquitous, without us always being aware of it. This is obviously the case on the Internet (targeted advertising, personalized recommendations), and more particularly on social networks (facial recognition, presentation of information according to the user’s profile, etc.). AI also plays an increasingly important role in all professional fields: medical (diagnostic assistance, X-ray analysis), financial (obtaining a loan) or legal (prediction of recidivism).

Progress is fast, competition is fierce and legislation is often lagging behind in the face of unprecedented situations, outreaching the scope of national frameworks. The dematerialization of exchanges over the Internet and the weak relevance of national borders over the global network further complicates the task. Finally, the hegemonic character of certain actors and their financial power (as well as the lobbying they can demonstrate) make things even trickier. All the more so, since these players have the power to strike (to adapt to new legislation, for example), and above all, because they have a mass of data that lack most SMEs and start-ups trying to emerge in this complex landscape.

Since AI is a technical and complex field, it is often entrusted to the sole hands of computer scientists. However, the consequences of its applications fall under much more varied expertises (psychology, law, philosophy, etc.). It is therefore absolutely necessary to carry out multidisciplinary analyzes of the problems AI raises. This is why our initiative brings together researchers from different disciplines, in order to combine their perspectives and bring out more innovative, more detailed and more profound answers to the questions posed by the new uses of AI.

Today, AI has a direct impact on everyone’s fate. We are convinced that the discussions around these technologies must go beyond the restricted circle of specialists to reach society as a whole.

Objectives

Our initiative aims for the advancement of knowledge in the field of AI ethics and is targeted at all audiences, from general public to experts. Our actions consist mainly in :

• Combining pluridisciplinary expertises to analyse the issues raised by AI progress, and to anticipate future developments.
• Training to decypher the challenges of the digital transformation.
• Organizing meetings to inform and educate the general public on major questions raised by the new uses of artificial intelligence.

Who are we

The AISI is coordinated by Aïda Elamrani and Thierry Poibeau.

Aïda Elamrani is currently a PhD student at Institut Jean Nicod and research engineer at the Lattice laboratory. Her research addresses philosophy of AI, especially machine consciousness and the comparison between humans and machines.

Thierry Poibeau is a research director at CNRS. He is a member of the Lattice laboratory and chair within 3IA Institute Prairie. His research addresses automated natural language processing, digital humanities and questions related to the deployment of artificial intelligence (ethical questions, impact on work, etc.).