scientists-from-france

"All of my work focuses on the idea that we need to keep a boundary between humans and robots. But Google is blurring the lines with this voice. It opens the door to unethical applications. The voice is what’s easiest to imitate for the moment, from a technological standpoint. It’s possible to trick the person who doesn’t know who they’re communicating with. You can make someone say things they never said. You can even make the dead speak. It’s a breach of trust."

"I suggest a COP [conference of parties] be held on artificial intelligence. It is urgent that we take an interest in the repercussions of what we’re doing. It’s our responsibility!"

"Firstly, it is unconscionable to want to try to reproduce a human as we can easily deceive and manipulate. Here I am targeting for example Google Home and Sophia. Next we must be careful with attachment and empathy. If we live with machines all the time, there will be consequences on our relationships with others. Then there will be a division between those who have access to this technology and understand it and those who don’t. We are widening the gap of technological inequality, and long-term it’s anti-democratic."

"Yes, I think that this is where Europe and also the United States can make a difference. Maybe the price will be the main argument for someone buying a robot. But maybe there will also be an ethical aspect that will influence their choice of one robot over another. For this we need to make ethics “fashionable”."

"Each country has its own values and robots should comply with the values of the country they are in, kind of like labor laws."

"We understand ethics when it comes to data, this is why we need the new GDPR regulations. But when it comes to co-evolution with machines we aren’t talking about what changes it will lead to in terms of inter-human relations. Psychiatrists are interested in this question but the world of technology isn’t yet. Certain manufacturers I work with such as Softbank Robotics [who make the robots Pepper and Nao] are starting to understand the idea of ethics. But we still need to find a compromise between ethics and business. We need to agree together on a system of human values that will be respected by the robots who interact with us."

"We first need a certain set of ethics for designers, which is why researchers are in the loop. Then we need to give people the ability to understand the system they’re using. I’m part of a nudging project that aims to explain gently to people. We’ll also need to teach robotics at school so children can have perspective when it comes to questions of artificial intelligence and robotics. And then we’ll need legal rules. In the same way that there’s a committee who decides whether a medicinal product is put on the market or not, we’ll need an ethical committee who validates a robot or not before its market launch. But not everything should be constrained by ethical reasoning. We can do business that’s ethical and responsible. When I say ethics, I’m not talking about philosophy. I’m talking about making machines that respect our values. We have to ask ourselves how these new robots harbor a danger for humans and accordingly how we can regulate it."

"The goal is not to replace the human. The machine is, for the moment, incapable of this. Our robots are not very precise yet. We are making more cognitive advances than physical ones. Mechatronics are going to need a lot more research. Making entirely humanoid robots remains complicated."

"Yes, my point of view is utilitarian and functional. Robots have a lot to offer us. When I see the percentage of the population that will be elderly in the next few years, it’s clear that we won’t have enough working people to look after them. So it could be interesting to have a robot in charge of monitoring these people when they are at the end of their lives for example. So robots are useful but we have to be aware that they should complement humans and not replace humans."

"As soon as we hear a machine speak, it’s implied that the machine understands. That it has the capacity of a human. Which is not the case. For example Sophia from Hanson Robotics speaks in a way that is semantically coherent but she is following a script, she’s absolutely not autonomous, she has no desires or intentions. She’s a marionette. Engineers have given her a scripted dialog. Machine learning allows for learning from data, but without understanding. This machine has nothing to do yet with a living embryo."

"Born under the most beautiful of skies, fed on the fruits of a land that is fertile and requires no cultivation ... [the Tahitians] know no other Gods but love. Every day is dedicated to it. The entire island is its temple, every woman its altar, every man its priest. And what sort of women? you will ask. The rivals of Georgians in beauty, and the sisters of the utterly naked Graces. There, neither shame nor modesty exercise their tyranny ..."

"Every generation will use the images that they got at the beginning of their conscious lives as a standard and will extrapolate forward. And the difference then, they perceive as a loss. But they don't perceive what happened before as a loss. You can have a succession of changes. At the end you want to sustain miserable leftovers."

"The three decades following World War II were a period of rapidly increasing fishing effort and landings, but also of spectacular collapses, particularly in small pelagic fish stocks. This is also the period in which a toxic triad of catch underreporting, ignoring scientific advice and blaming the environment emerged as standard response to ongoing fisheries collapses, which became increasingly more frequent, finally engulfing major North Atlantic fisheries. The response to the depletion of traditional fishing grounds was an expansion of North Atlantic (and generally of northern hemisphere) fisheries in three dimensions: southward, into deeper waters and into new taxa, i.e. catching and marketing species of fish and invertebrates previously spurned, and usually lower in the food web."

"In general however, those hit by the new (SARS-CoV-2) virus are in a less serious condition than with SARS."

"We (France) are going to have patients suspected of having the (SARS-CoV-2) virus, there are going to be (more) cases."

"How could liberty ever have established itself amongst us? Apart from several tragic scenes, the revolution has been nothing but a web of farcical scenes… But it is in the nation’s senate that the most grotesque parades have taken place."

"To form a truly free constitution, that’s to say, truly just and wise, the first point, the main point, the capital point, is that all the laws be agreed on by the people, after considered reflection, and especially having taken time to see what’s at stake…"

"No, liberty is not made for us: we are too ignorant, too vain, too presumptuous, too cowardly, too vile, too corrupt, too attached to rest and to pleasure, too much slaves to fortune to ever know the true price of liberty. We boast of being free! To show how much we have become slaves, it is enough just to cast a glance on the capital and examine the morals of its inhabitants."

"Robespierre listened to me with terror. He grew pale and silent for some time. This interview confirmed me in the opinion that I always had of him, that he unites the knowledge of a wise senator with the integrity of a thoroughly good man and the zeal of a true patriot but that he is lacking as a statesman in clearness of vision and determination."

"People, give thanks to the gods! Your most redoubtable enemy has fallen beneath the scythe of Fate. Riquetti [Mirabeau] is no more; he dies victim of his numerous treasons, victim of his too tardy scruples, victim of the barbarous foresight of his atrocious accomplices. Adroit rogues who are to be found in all circles have sought to play upon your pity, and already duped by their false discourse, you mourn this traitor as the most zealous of your defenders; they have represented his death as a public calamity, and you bewail him as a hero, as the saviour of your country, who has sacrificed himself for you. Will you always be deaf to the voice of prudence; will you always sacrifice public affairs to your blindness?"

"Robertspiere [sic], Robertspiere alone in vain raised his voice against the perfidious decree regarding superior conscripts, but his voice was muffled."

"The people are never voluntary slaves, they yield not to power, but when they believe it to be a duty, or are unable to oppose it. Hence in a state newly founded or reformed, the subjects are not at once enslaved, however imperfect the constitution might be. Despair, that prompted them at first to throw off the yoke, would prompt them to throw it off anew whenever they should feel its weight. To commence with open attacks upon liberty, and to attempt to destroy it by violence, would prove therefore a rash undertaking. When those who govern, daringly dispute the supreme power with open force, and the people perceive their rulers attempting * to enslave them, the latter ever prevail, and the Prince in a moment loses the fruit of all his efforts. At his first attempt the subjects unite against him, and his authority is at stake, if his conduct be not more submissive than imperious. It is not therefore by open attacks Princes first attempt to enslave the people, they take their measures in secrecy, they have recourse to craft: it is by flow but constant efforts, by changes almost imperceptible, by innovations of which it is difficult to observe the consequences, and such as are scarcely taken notice of."

"Five or six hundred [aristocratic] heads lopped off would have assured you repose and happiness; a false humanity has restrained your arm and suspended your blows; it will cost the lives of millions of your brothers."

"Fifty years of anarchy await you, and you will emerge from it only by the power of some dictator who will arise- a true statesman and patriot. O prating people, if you did but know how to act!"