Optic - News

IA SOLIDARITY AND INSURANCE IN FRONT OF THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION.

Watch the presentation of our report "Artificial intelligence, solidarity and insurance in Europe and Canada" in front of the European Commission.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, INSURANCE AND SOLIDARITY

Artificial intelligence is an incomparable tool for personalizing offers, products and prices accordingly to the customers. In the frame of the mandate of the newly created International Panel on Artificial Intelligence (IPAI), and in the context of of the 100 days deadline set by the European Commission to regulate AI, it is important to check that this customization does not turn into individualism and that it is not likely to harm society as a whole.

Deliver Us From A.I.?

Here is the new interview of the president of OPTIC in Fortune Magazine. In this piece are described the activities of our think tank, the unique research we are conducting and our latest collaboration with the OPTIC office in Canada

DATA TRAFFICKERS

GAFAs are no longer just trying to capture and monetize our data, but to predict and influence our behaviour: by clicking on an ad or liking content, we feed Google or Facebook's algorithms that transform them into marketable behavioural predictions. As a result, society is divided into two classes: those who watch, the minority, and those who are watched, the majority of us. This is what the American academic Shoshana Zuboff, Professor Emeritus at Harvard Business School, defends in a scathing essay entitled The Age of Surveillance Capitalism to be published by Zulma.

"WAR CAN NEVER BE IDENTIFIED WITH VIRTUALITY"

Interview with Dominique Lambert, by Romina Rebois

What is the correct and legal definition of an algorithmic state of war?

For Dominique Lambert, Professor of Philosophy of Science at the University of Namur, it is necessary to get used to the idea that war is no longer fought only in geographical theatres of operation but also in cyberspace. In other words, war occurs in a much more intimate and accessible individual and social space than ever before. Nevertheless, in this virtual universe, as on the battlefield, the effects of war are real.

WILL THE WAR OF IA TAKE PLACE?

The seizure of power by megalomaniacal AIs does not seem likely to threaten our far future. Algorithms have such vulnerabilities that man cannot disappear from the decision-making loop. On the other hand, human-machine hybridization suggests a cyborgisation of the battlefield in which AIs could play the role of shepherd dogs: autonomous, faithful, enduring and on the alert.

By Romina REBOIS and Pierre GUEYDIER

IS THERE A JUST CYBER WAR?

Interview with Mariarosaria Taddeo, by Marylaure Bloch

War has its rules, laws and rights. These rules are sometimes broken, laws are circumvented and rights are violated. However, war is part of a legal order that expresses ethical considerations. Should cyber aggression be considered as an act of war? For the Deputy Director of the Digital Ethics Lab in Oxford, there is an urgent need to define a legal framework for cyber space conflicts.

THE UNCERTAINTIES OF QUANTUM CRYPTOGRAPHY

It is not known whether "quantum supremacy" over conventional computers was achieved during the summer as Google has announced. IBM asserts that no, Google maintains (link) Let's say, for lack of certainty, that the announcement was quantum, in a superposition of half-true and half-untrue state... Nevertheless, the question that arises for cryptography specialists becomes burning. This is reflected in a lecture given by Victoria de Quehen (ISARA) on October 15, 2019 in Montreal. Our correspondent attended.

OPTIC Annual Report "ETHICS & TECH 2019"

We are particularly pleased to present the first edition of the ETHICS & TECH report of the OPTIC network. This work, lasting several months, with the support of contributors and authors from diverse geographical and intellectual backgrounds, aimed to provide a synthesis accessible to all those who wish to better understand the collective and contemporary challenges of digital technology on a human, political and even anthropological level.