Ahead of the international summit organized on the subject in Paris on Monday and Tuesday, the Ministry of Culture supervised two days of meetings at the BNF and the Conciergerie on the weekend of February 8 and 9. On the program: round tables, workshops and exhibitions to better understand what artificial intelligence is and how it will change our lives.
An “opportunity”. Here is the key word spoken by the Minister of Culture Rachida Dati about AI. An “opportunity, but also a challenge,” she then clarified in her introductory speech this weekend at the BNF. Thanking the president of the institution, she recalled that this moment was her initiative and that Emmanuel Macron had given his agreement for this meeting around questions relating to the world of culture, which was not initially planned by the government.
On the sidelines of the summit which took place Monday and Tuesday at the Grand Palais in Paris, a whole weekend was organized to debate artificial intelligence in the field of culture. Seven round tables took followed in the large auditorium of the national library with themes ranging from AI in the face of information to its presence in museums, including its interest in the field of heritage and genealogy. Alongside, workshops allowed the public to familiarize themselves with AI tools, such as an image generator or a conversational service allowing them to chat with Francis the 1st (1494-1547) or Marguerite Duras(1914-1996), while radio RFI had set up a studio to make special broadcasts on the subject.
At the Conciergerie, a vast exhibition was presented in which a range of artists showed works created with and/or on AI. A real dive into the mysteries of the new technology which allowed us to see to what extent its capabilities in the production of images can prove to be astounding.
A closing evening at the Ministry of Culture was organized at the end of the weekend, Sunday evening. The opportunity for Rachida Dati to say she was “delighted with the success” of this meeting and dared to use another word, AI is “A step forward,” she said at the start of her speech.
By Jean-Baptiste Gauvin
