This opinion blog was originally written in French. I comissioned a trained translator, Noah Vago, to translate it to english. All discrepancies between the French and the English version are my responsability.
ChatGPT’s launch on November 30th, 2022 has had profound consequences. Since OpenAI released this chatbot online, there have been countless laudatory declarations stating “AI” was supposedly able to transform the workplace, make our lives easier and solve an (often never specified) bunch of problems. Scientific top people such as Philippe Aghion, Professor of innovation economics at the Collège de France, hypothesise that, if we adapt our institutions (one can wonder what “adapting” means in this context), AI can be a tool for economic growth. “AI”’s importance turns it into a strategic and unavoidable issue. This could explain the organisation with great ceremony of an “AI” summit last February. Emmanuel Macron invited, among others, Elon Musk, AI’s self-proclaimed big shot, who had a mere two days previous given in to the impulse of doing two Nazi salutes publicly, and who is an outspoken supporter of the AfD, Germany’s far-right party. As top software companies heavily push the integration of “AI” in their programs, making its use unavoidable – as in, there is no alternative. On an anecdotal note, my optician always asks for my opinion on AI and its – actual or supposed – efficiency. Offline role playing narrators – a hobby I enjoy – can quickly obtain plausible illustrations by using Microsoft’s generative AIs.