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

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.

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.

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

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.     

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.

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.

09 avril 2018 - Paris - BFMTV

TV Show "Les décodeurs de l'éco" with Eric Salobir

March 27th 2018 - Paris - DécideursTV

TV Show "Virage Digital - Actual'IT", DécideursTV, with Br. Eric Salobir.

March 11th 2018 - Vatican

Winners of the hackathon at the Vatican

VHacks winners announced on March 11, 2018 at the Vatican City.

 22 janvier 2018 - Paris, Collège des Bernardins

Full video stream of the "OPTIC Talks" audio dubbed in French. Full original audio version will be available soon.

 January 22,  2018 - Paris, Collège des Bernardins

Publication of the work of three research groups.

March 8th - 11th 2018 - Vatican

A hackathon at the Vatican

VHacks is a 36-hour collaborative event taking place from March 8 to March 11, 2018 at the Vatican City.

16 janvier 2018 - Paris, KTOtv

"À la source" TV show, KTO tv: br. Eric Salobir was interviewed on AI.

November, 2 17 - Oxford. "Theology between information and language" a colloquium 

September, 19 2017 - Geneva, UN. Side Event at the UN on Artificial intelligence, justice and human rights. 

July, 27 2017 - Boston, MIT Media Lab. During the "Defiance" conference, brother Eric Salobir, OPTIC president, engaged in a dialogue on science and religion with Maria Zuber, astrophysicist.