Culture is future »

04.01.2016

#FAbdx - Account of the session: What are algorithms dreaming of?

Session with Philippe Torres, deputy director and Head of consulting in Digital strategy at Atelier BNP Paribas, Pierre-Louis Xech, DX Research Lead, Microsoft France, Gary Shapiro, CEO of Consumer Electronics Association, Dominique Cardon, sociologist at Orange Lab, Cynthia Fleury, philosopher, Associate Professor at the American University of Paris, ORLAN, artist.

Moderator: Eric Scherer

According to Eric Schere, the new digital revolution will emerge from international high tech initiatives. “Forget digital technology, everything becomes data, and data is everything” asserts Philippe Torres. Instead of falling into the data cult, we must fuel a culture of data by pursuing further training and establishing concrete objectives, without searching to imitate but rather to “disrupt the disrupters”.

The omnipresence of smartphones will launch the beginning of a new and profound transformation of our lifestyles, contends Gary Shapiro. Pierre-Louis Xeck defends a narrow collaboration between men and the machine while future evolutions already interrogates our social contract.

“Society becomes more and more calculated thanks to the data we provide” according to Dominique Cardon. “However, we are not the sum of our data traces”. Building an algorithm is not a neutral process but is rather dependent upon the coder’s whim. Nonetheless, we must pull ourselves away from the “illusion of the objective calculation” which entails “a democratization of data learning” as well as “the conception of a regulatory institution for a fair use of data” according to Cynthia Fleury. ORLAN aspires to the critical recognition of digital art”.