Philosopher Gabrielle Halpern holds an inaugural conference on the occasion of the “Franco-Latvian Dialogue on Artificial Intelligence in Education”

The French philosopher Gabrielle Halpern was invited to Riga by the French Institute of Latvia, on the occasion of the “Franco-Latvian Dialogue on Artificial Intelligence in Education”. She opened the event with a conference, to share her vision of artificial intelligence in education.

« Hibridizācija ir ideja izveidot tiltus starp šķietami tālām pasaulēm neatkarīgi no tā, vai tās ir starp paaudzēm, profesijām vai teritorijām. Apvienojot tos, mēs varam izcelt jaunas pasaules: jaunas profesijas, jaunas vietas, jaunas iztēles. Tas nav tikai jēdziens, tas ir sociāls projekts, kas man radās, reaģējot uz runām, kas pastāvīgi izceļ šķelšanos mūsu sabiedrībā. Manuprāt, konstruktīvāk ir domāt par veidiem, kā pārvarēt šīs šķelšanās, veicinot tikšanās un apmaiņu starp šīm atsevišķajām “pasaulēm” », Gabrielle Halpern

"We always talk about new technologies as if they constituted an entity in themselves, as if they had an existence of their own, as if they were an otherness in relation to us. But these machines, these robots, these software do not constitute an otherness for us, since they are our production, a part of ourselves... Why did the human being feel the need to produce them? What do they say about us?", Gabrielle Halpern

« Marignano 1515! How many of us have learned the date of this french battle by heart, during our young school years, to get a good grade on our History test? This date no longer serves us much today, when we have become adults, and it is stored in a small drawer of our memory, given its longevity to the mnemonic ease of repeating the 15th of 1515! Since 1515, water has flowed under the bridges; a lot of blood too and the news brings up this same question every day: we were good students, but what good did it do us? Are we good citizens? The philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in his time, already denounced this learned monkey education that we provide to young people in schools, that "we raise them at great expense to teach them all things, except their duties", which are “magnanimity, temperance, humanity, courage.” The humanities, like the hardest sciences, are absurd if they are not constantly linked to reality. The past centuries have unfortunately been experimentation and proof of the vanity of scholarship; culture and education have not been able to prevent barbarism, which means that a cultivated and educated mind is not enough. Cultivated minds must also be courageous and good", Gabrielle Halpern

"The good news is that the development of generative artificial intelligence will force us to rethink the purpose of our learning, the meaning of our knowledge, the usefulness of our scholarship. Since our technological tools will soon know everything, will we finally have the courage and goodness to be citizens? What will we learn and what knowledge will we delegate to new technologies?", Gabrielle Halpern

To learn more about this event in Latvia: https://www.institut-francais.lv/fr/v_events/lia-dans-leducation-dialogue-entre-la-france-et-la-lettonie/#/

To read the interview with philosopher Gabrielle Halpern in Latvian: https://www.entrevue.fr/lv/interview-gabrielle-halpern-lhybridation-un-projet-de-societe-pour-depasser-nos-divisions/

Discover the books of Gabrielle Halpern at your favorite bookseller!