• In

    Virtual servitudes

    , Jean-Gabriel Ganascia, researcher in artificial intelligence and president of the CNRS ethics committee, shows how the all-digital is gradually eating away at our freedoms.

  • Digital technology has changed society and our social relationships.

    Jean-Gabriel Ganascia dissects major concepts such as censorship, friendship, trust in the light of digital technology.

  • He returns for

    20 Minutes

    to this worrying observation.

How does the digital world enslave us without us even realizing it?

And above all, how have our social relationships changed in the era of social networks, algorithms (and their biases), filter bubbles and fake news?

In

Virtual servitudes

(Seuil), published last Friday, Jean-Gabriel Ganascia, researcher in artificial intelligence and president of the CNRS ethics committee, draws up a fascinating inventory of our society upset by the omnipotence of digital technology which confiscates little little by little our freedom.

He returns for

20 Minutes

to this worrying observation.

How did you come up with this notion of “virtual easements”, which is also the title of your book?

The idea of ​​servitude in the digital age came to me quite early.

The digital world offers a lot of possibilities and at the same time, we have the feeling of being a bit of a slave.

We are kept on a leash.

The title

Discourse on Voluntary Servitude

by La Boétie is interesting precisely because it is not at all voluntary.

I found it interesting to show that in the current case, these channels don't seem like much, digital isn't scary, it's not a restrictive world and at the same time, if we really become aware of this reality , we can try to get rid of it.

“If all the information you receive matches your profile, you will view the world through a certain prism and you will have no way of knowing it”

To what extent has man lost his freedom in a digital world where freedom seems unlimited?

In the book, I talk about informational organizations, these are the search engines on social networks.

They are indispensable in the digital world and at the same time, their power over us is intangible.

The first step is to become aware of it in order to master the issues.

All these informational organisms have more and more considerable power and the possessors of these informational organisms are gaining more and more empire over the world.

The information that comes to us is filtered.

If all the information you receive matches your profile, you will view the world through a certain prism and you will have no way of knowing.

And above all, the common space for discussion and debate is tending to shrink.

Because we are in a world where, at the same time, we have the freedom to know,

What are the consequences for humans?

First of all, this has consequences for the political system.

Even in countries where democratic institutions are respected, such as in Europe or the United States, this skews them.

Politics becomes marketing.

We use in the world of politics, the tools we use to do targeted advertising, that's what is quite troubling today.

You mention in your book “new forms of censorship”, what do you mean by that?

It is the last of the reontologizations [the redefinition of the primordial values ​​of society linked to connectivity] that I envisage.

A State cannot be constituted without controlling information.

We are generations who, a priori, would like to abolish all censorship because we have forgotten that there are types of information that are difficult to accept, incitement to violence, defamation... They fall under the law .

The problem is that we are no longer able to filter, from the moment everyone can disseminate information at their leisure.

There are so many messages that it is difficult to do this.

It would be necessary to manufacture machines which are capable of censoring, but they risk being even more depriving of freedom because they will be automatic.

Post-censorship could repress people who have broken the law, who have sent defamatory messages, for example.

This is possible provided that everyone comes under the same law, but Internet being universal, it is enough that there are deterritorialized actors not to come under this law.

This term “censorship” is interesting.

It's a curious rewrite because, as we no longer dare to use the term, we don't call it “censorship”, but it falls entirely within the function of censorship.

This term “censorship” is interesting.

It's a curious rewrite because, as we no longer dare to use the term, we don't call it “censorship”, but it falls entirely within the function of censorship.

This term “censorship” is interesting.

It's a curious rewrite because, as we no longer dare to use the term, we don't call it “censorship”, but it falls entirely within the function of censorship.

You also talk about the transformation of friendships in the digital world, do you think there is no more room for friendship in the classic sense of the term?

I tried to analyze how ancient notions like friendship evolve in the modern world.

I took over

Ethics from Nicomaque

of Aristotle where he details the notion of friendship.

He distinguishes different types of friendship: friendship by interest;

friendship because we have common passions, we like hunting or stamps, for example.

There are specific social networks for different forms of friendship: networks for friendship in the sense of professional interest, such as LinkedIn;

networks where you will find people who have a common passion with you.

The last form of friendship, which makes you have a really special affinity with a person, does it survive with digital?

The fact that you have news of the friend through the networks means that you will take less time to call him, write to him.

This form of friendship may persist but you take less care of your friend, but this type of friendship requires you to devote time,

to invest.

Digital is changing the nature of friendship a bit.

“You have to ask yourself: what are the ways to regain possession of all these lost territories?

»

What difference do you see between the digital world which skews our judgement, diminishes our freedom of thought and our critical spirit and attacks the pillars of democracy and a dictatorship?

It is of a different nature.

In a dictatorship, a man takes power for his own benefit.

There you have a number of large industry groups that have power.

But I agree that the result is comparable.

The public debate which should allow everyone to exchange, is confiscated.

And from the cognitive point of view, we no longer have the means to access all the information, there is too much information.

In 2018, we issued an opinion within the framework of the CNRS ethics committee on the posture of the scientist in the era of post-truth.

And the difficulty is: in a world crossed by false information, how to be able to explain to the general public that there are obviously false things?

It was before the pandemic,

and the pandemic has shown us how much more difficult it was than we imagined at the time.

It's all the harder since we are in a world where there is a refusal of authority.

With the arrival of the metaverse, what dangers do you see for the future?

What I anticipate is the continuation of what I am describing, the risks of enslavement.

My concern is that these major players take on an even more important role, we must be extremely vigilant in the face of them.

We must ask ourselves: what are the ways to regain possession of all these lost territories?

The question of sovereignty is important.

Symbolically, it is the people who govern through a certain number of institutions and that is what is at fault today.

The big problem with these players is that they have a completely independent policy, no one votes for Google or for Facebook.

At the time of Covid-19, I was surprised that many were worried about the StopCovid app, because it threatened our freedoms.

They were right in the sense that you had to be careful,

but there was no comparison with other players like Google and Apple.

But there is no control over them.

We are dealing with new powers that are being established.

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  • fake news

  • Democracy

  • Censorship

  • Digital

  • Culture

  • Freedom

  • Artificial intelligence

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