This is the question that always comes, and it hides several others: fear for one’s profession, anger at companies that feed on authors’ work, the feeling of being left behind, and sometimes a curiosity one dares not show in front of colleagues. I use these tools every day, in my own creative work and in the agency’s work, and I have been writing about them for years: it is by far the most substantial part of this site. Depending on your teams, I can take very different paths.
First direction: answering the fears, one by one
I have identified six fears that come up systematically, and for each one a shift in thinking that consists neither in reassuring nor in alarming. This talk suits a divided team, when the subject has become impossible to raise without conflict. It comes from Six Fears About AI, Six Shifts in Thinking, and I address head-on the ecological question, which is often the one through which people refuse to enter the subject, in Ecology and Artificial Intelligence and The last straw.
Second direction: the creative talk, where the room makes things
This is the format I prefer, and the one I am asked for more and more. Rather than talking about what an AI does, we make something with it together, live, with the phones in the room. Within twenty minutes, a group that knew nothing about it produces images, sees what works, what fails, what worries, and finds itself with something to discuss from its own experience rather than from its reading. Critical thinking forms there. See Media and ai education through creativity and Participatory design and Artificial Intelligence.
Third direction: what teenagers have to teach us
I contributed to a world conference bringing teenagers together around AI, and what they formulated there displaces many adult discussions. A useful direction for teams that work with young people and approach the subject through prohibition. See What Teenagers Can Teach Us About Artificial Intelligence.
Fourth direction: the question of the author
Who is the author of a text, an image, a film produced with a machine? The question looks legal; it is first of all philosophical and political, and it touches the very genealogy of human thought, which has never been solitary. This direction suits festivals, art schools and authors’ professional organisations. See The notion of authorship in the era of generative artificial intelligence, Defending authors with words that aren’t their own and The skill as a work of art.
Fifth direction: AI as a professional tool, not a gadget
Many organisations have bought subscriptions and find that nothing has changed. What changes something is building tools that contain the context, the documents and the ways of doing things of the house. I explain concretely how, without technical jargon, and I show tools we have developed. A direction much in demand from local authorities and companies. See RAG, or how to give an AI the power of a business tool, Context : The Key to Artificial Intelligence in Cultural Organizations and AI in Service of Democratic Transformation of Cultural Institutions.
Sixth direction: what it does to us
The least treated part elsewhere, and the one I write about most. What becomes of the figure of the specialist when everyone has one in their pocket. What happens when a machine enters our intimate dialogues. Why a person placed in the position of executant does not contribute, and why this is true of humans and machines alike. A direction for audiences who want to think rather than to equip themselves. See A specialist in your pocket, The Entangled Person, Contribution cannot be commanded and Trouble in Intelligence.
What happens in the room
I show by doing, always. And I devote a moment to gathering the group’s real positions, through questions answered by standing up, or through a moving debate: on this subject, teams are far more divided than they let on in meetings, and saying so openly unblocks what follows. The written contributions allow reluctance to express itself without anyone having to go over the top.
What remains
The productions made live and the contribution wall stay online. When the work goes further, these traces become the material for a usage framework written by the team itself, which is worth infinitely more than a charter downloaded from elsewhere. I have recounted this kind of process in Generative AI, Education and Culture : Recommendations Drafted Across Three Countries.
Formats and preparation
A participatory hour and a half, a training-action day, or the facilitation of a monitoring committee over time, as at the Forum des images. The preparation serves above all to find out where your teams really stand, which is rarely what management imagines. I can also support a member of your team in carrying an AI talk themselves, as I did for the Forum des images and TUMO Paris at VivaTech: content, dramaturgy, a glossary for difficult questions, rehearsals [see the page “What if someone from your team did the talking?”, to be linked once published]. Talks are given in French and in English.
Some past talks
Webinar presenting the findings of the AI Monitoring Committee of the Forum des images; Crafting cultural narratives with artificial intelligence; « CinémA.I » in Studio 13-16 at the Centre Pompidou; Tumo x IA - Creative journeys to the heart of AI; Artificial Intelligence and Creation" course for teachers.
All the resources: Artificial intelligence, creativity and critical thinking and Cultural professions and Artificial Intelligence.