CONFERENCE
Recording during the thematic meeting : «Discrete Mathematics and Computer Science » the January 31, 2024 at the Centre International de Rencontres Mathématiques (Marseille, France)
Filmmaker : Luca Récanzone
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Okay uh thank you pier and the the organizers for having invited me uh this is a sort of challenge for me today uh because uh I will talk to um computer scientists and uh and discret mathematicians I don’t know if the this is the correct terminology but um I will
I will talk about uh very different things uh a prior to to what you you expect to to to discover during this this week um so the title is uh is about ecological transition and the anthropos scene so I can first Give a definition of anthropocene very briefly this is
Mostly debated in in the Comm in the scientific Community but this is the idea that uh Humanity has uh now a a huge force that acts onto the the Earth the climate but not only the biodiversity a lot of things and that it can be perceived um scientifically and even
Personally and it can have dramatic influences that I will explain a little bit um yeah and to explain a bit more about those different logos so xar University um int this is uh the Institute of sense of laimon um where I am and three logos here about EO responsibility
Atop this is aty politic de Mar and scientific in Rebellion I will uh I will explain those logos during the the presentation um yeah and just to start uh to explain you a bit more about my uh classical traj academic trajectory in order you to understand
Maybe several things so I I’ve um I’ve had a master in Applied Mathematics then a PhD in signal and image processing in 2007 and it was in a neuroscience lab uh next I’ve been uh hired as an assistant Prof in in computer science in in Marseilles in 2009 and I moved to a
Neuroscience 5 years ago uh and very briefly my um classical uh fields of research are about um modeling and understanding some aspects about the the shape of the brain with clinical applications but I I’m also interested in a more fundamental research more theoretical research for instance regarding spectral
Analysis of graphs and and surfaces and just oops sorry um a few uh illustrations just to for you to have an idea so I’m I’m studying this very uh interesting shape here so three different brains with different structures here the the the cortical folding cortical folds and I I studi
That with M MRI images here uh it’s possible to reconstruct 3D models of uh of the brain by using those images and try to analyze those uh those shapes with different tools and I have also um uh let’s say more modeling part in my research regarding the simulation of the uh the
Emergence of the folds here during the the gestation okay so this is a you can see it as a sort of dynamical system there is a dynamic an evolution of a surface uh that is smooth at the beginning and that uh is able to to create some uh some some
Shapes uh in this part I’m um in the I’m more in the the validation of the model I’m not an expert in biomechanical simulation I try to find good ways to check that the model is correct and this is not an easy task and also I mentioned
Uh this uh very uh uh inspiring paper by Alan Turing the last paper he he published before before his death so the chemical basis of morphogenesis it’s It’s a large source of inspiration in particular because it’s not present in that sort of model all the let’s say the genetic aspects
Um that are uh necessary in the morphogenesis morphogenesis is not only a question of growth and mechanics of course and uh yeah it’s something that we can try to incorporate to the models and to my opinion it’s it’s very it’s a very motivating topic but um six years ago approximately seven um
I’ve had a a SAT let’s say a beautiful Japanese word um just to um to tell that uh I’ve realized something very strong I was working uh in the HS so close to shamun if you know this this city you can take a train and go to a gla called
M Glass and uh you can walk you can go down to the glassier and um when you go down there are some indications here of the level of glacia um during the past years so here it was in 2003 the glac is here so probably H 20 M uh uh downstairs
Uh below and uh it is a strong uh personal experience of what is climate change actually uh because I I really realized during this moment uh what impact it could have it was not only question of Graphics of Curves Trends uh things like this this is a strong uh
Personal experience and as you can imagine uh the consequence uh oops is u a state quite well described by this painting by Edward Munch um a sort of um a complicated State uh mental state to continue to do uh his own research um so uh after that really it
Has been a change in my uh in the way I I considered science and how I could play a role in the in this ecological crisis uh and I will explain you after several attempts I’ve have done to um try to redirect my uh trajectory not
This is not a full redirection so I’m still working on the the topics I presented you to you before so about brain development but uh I try to uh to do other things and uh this is a first one of the first things um I’ve done or I’ve
Discovered here I I was one among the the 15,000 scientist who sign this paper uh this is a warning to humanity uh and awarding regarding a lot of Trends so I I selected just four Trends here uh the first one is the amount of CO2 emissions in the atmosphere so this
Is a con increase uh in the in the 60 in the past 60 years and uh there is a link with the increase of temperature uh in the same period so here this is you recognize the the the issue of uh problem of climate change and this is not the only problem
There is also this question of uh biodiversity loss so here this is the decrease of um uh vertebrate abundance there are also problems with resources such as fresh water here so all the the trends are are really uh hard when you discover them because it the the idea that comes is
That the the the future of humanity is really uh is really uh in danger um so that’s why was my state of mind in 2017 or 18 um I don’t know if it’s necessary to to explain more about that um maybe yeah I discovered those cures probably you
You know them um or to be convinced by this uh climate change so I don’t think now this is a a problem but maybe six years ago 10 years ago there was a lot of skepticism about this scientific fact uh so there are curves so correlation here between CO2 and temperature here
This is the level of CO2 now there are also models here that try to uh to to convince that the anthropogenic um forces so the the contribution of human activity is the only determinant of climate change so this those two simulations here so on the right uh you
Have black the black curve here that represent the the observation of the temperature so you can see an increase and in in red and blue uh there are um two two kind of simulations uh that don’t take into account the human activity so when you do that when you take only into account
For instance the variations of uh of the the the the the energy um brought by the sun things like this uh the model predict uh no evolution of the temperature but if you add the anthropogenic component you can see that that the model is is is is quite uh
Realistic or realistic so for the uh ipcc members so the the members of the inter governmental panel of climate change J in in French uh it has um it has led to a scientific cons consensus and now uh we can we can we can really say that climate change is a
Scientific fact and no one can contest that uh the anthropogenic um C is the the only determinant so for instance this paper here is a analysis on a large number of of Articles to show that there there is no more uh there are no more debates on
This on this question okay so once we we have said that what’s next so the ipcc proposes some scenarios to uh to limit the uh the increase of temperature uh uh and for that you need to control the amount of CO2 that the human activity will send in the atmosphere so in this
Graphic uh zero is the objective you want to reach okay so zero is the um difference between what Humanity send into the atmosphere minus what is um taken by the oceans or the forest uh so now there is an excess clearly um and and the trends is increasing and there are different
Scenarios so here this is the scenario if you want to reach an increase of 1.5 degrees at the end of the century uh here we have the the business as usual policies so nothing really change uh or maybe it’s optimistic in some sense the the CO2 stabilizes but the implication of that
Is an increase of temperature of three Dees at least 3° at and um as you can imagine I have no time to detail here the consequences precisely uh and it’s a bit U frightening but you can imagine a lot of consequences in terms of level of otions okay in terms of mortality in
Regions where the temperature is high the list is very uh is very uh large so uh the question is uh is it possible to to reach this uh this trajectory and of course in the following uh as scientists as computer scientists what can we do for that um I
Will assume in the following that um because I’m mostly speaking about my my personal case I I assume that I want to contribute to this trajectory and I don’t want to contribute to this this one of course but it’s not just a question of saying things like this we
Need also means to do that uh okay so this is a sort of um um interlude but just to to to to tell you that during my U trajectory uh I rediscovered some some things that have been done in the 70s for instance um this uh limits to growth um
Book published in 72 if I remember so uh I don’t know if you’re familiar with that but this is I think it’s it’s interesting for for your community uh it’s it’s a uh here you have a big system complex systems with a lot of variables in all those those
Boxes for instance here you have the population here and here you have a lot of variables that control the population for instance mortality rate uh nality things like this you have also other components like pollution agriculture uh use of Ls uh a large box for economical aspects and you have interactions
Between all those boxes and this is this is a dynamical system continuous dynamical system so as soon as you have a link between two boxes you have a differential equation and uh people in the’ 70s like Denise and Don Mido and the others Tred to simulate the state of the world based
On complete description of let’s say 100 variables so such as the one I presented and they were able to calibrate their model So based on on values uh before I don’t know the 70 the 70s and they were able to to make predictions for instance here this is the the population the
Pollution uh the ution of resources um and uh yeah depending on for instance whether you have policies to stabilize population or to regulate pollution you can have different trajectories okay uh from a mathematical point of view it’s it’s quite frightening to imagine this sort of system and to be sure that the
Prediction would be correct but uh there is a community today that tries to revisit that sort of models and they show quite quite interesting results and okay so it’s just to to to show you that because um during a short period I was tempted to go to this uh to this
Community I did not uh in the 70s there is also uh something to ReDiscover I think it’s worth being rediscovered I don’t know if you recognize this guy yeah I I’ve heard the name so it’s Alexander grend and um in uh in 72 uh he he had
This famous conference in s uh the the big Physics Center in genev or Lan I don’t remember um and the title of the conference oops the title of the conference was are we going to continue um scientific research uh here and uh the text is available uh
Sorry it’s in French but I will sumarize it very rapidly um there is this first idea at the beginning of the text that uh uh the research the the the the edge research let’s say is associated to uh to a real threat to humanity okay and
It’s not mentioned here but of course is thinking about uh nuclear weapons this was a major problem in the in the’ 70s but also other aspects such as pollutions um social aspects and uh so we start with that and he really points the the the question of what is the
Place of Science in this um situation and it continues with a question that is very interesting for me uh why are we doing scientific research uh this is uh something he he points because he says that nobody uh discussed this question seriously uh in general we can discuss
That because we can find that I don’t know this field of research in maass is stimulating because it’s it’s beautiful it’s we have some personal desire to do that it brings us a lot of of joy things like this but in terms of um how we are embedded in the in the
In the uh in the world it it’s not really addressed so he continues with the question of uh continuing or stopping uh scientific research and he gives an answer at the at the end uh of the text which is uh I will say uh right
Now for me it’s too too radical but he says um he says that it’s not necessary to uh to have more knowledge and we have to change our civilization okay and and there is something a bit problematic in that for me this is the the the this
Anti science idea so for GR and dick as I understand here it’s no more necessary to do science because science is in some sense intrinsically bad and uh when I read this text during the the during my satory let’s say I was uh I was really impressed by that and I
I I I ader to this to this uh discour but now I think it’s it’s not um it’s not something that is possible to uh to to follow so I will propose other options that than um going into the into a forest or and living alone or things
Like this because I don’t think it’s uh something desirable um so it’s hard to imagine this sort of Po industrial anti-science civilization and I would like to yeah to to start with several questions I I won’t address them all but uh there is this question of of scales
When you want to to to go to action so to do something in this context of ecological crisis there is this big question of what can we do as scientists not as Citizens but as scientists uh there are also extra questions like this not scientific questions but really uh important because uh
Scientists have a role to play in theity in the Greek sense okay uh in the organization of the the the civilization let’s say and how what are the implications of that um okay so this is um just I will be very brief on that uh this is a chronology to
Show you several initiatives uh in the scientific Community I will just point this one a French initiative lab um this is about yeah several thousands of scientists in France who decided to decrease the environmental impact of research uh you can think of for instance traveling uh when you travel by
Plane you emit a lot of CO2 uh if you work in a field of research with large equipment uh it emits a lot of CO2 of greenhous gas emissions to build the equipment to make the Equipment Works things like this um so it’s a very popular initiative and now this is well
Recognized by our institution this is really fascinating because in in 2019 uh it was not the case and there are there has been more less classical um actions let’s say here uh the the Civil Disobedience I will speak about that later just to point that uh two recent events uh ear scientists French
Scientists um have had a trial uh because they stayed in the museum hisor natural in Paris after the closing of the museum and they they were just here toh to tell the truth uh because it’s not a crime and tell the truth it’s there is a global warming we have to do
Something or politics have to do something because they don’t do anything at the moment and they they want to try a good good news but in USA for instance the geologist Rosa abov uh has been fired from a lab because she protested during a congress uh just to say similar
Similar messages okay so uh civil disobedience is an option for for scientists uh this is the first uh answer I can propose to you if you want so I have to say that personally I’ve been engaged in some of those actions um so here this is a uh let’s
Say the the the most radical actions that scientist have have done recently in in munion they have glued their hands onto this car and um uh to uh to warn about uh about climate change uh they’ve been put in jail for one week um and
They are the triy their trial is a is is um is is happening now and on the right this is p in mares so if you want to to visit the city this is a very nice place and there was this message here sent to our our our French president Emanuel
Macron to to say um that he has to stop to lie okay so this is always this question of telling the truth okay telling the truth that scientists have um have established regarding climate change okay uh there are less radical options uh there is a plurality of Engagement so we are
Scientists we can write texts for instance this um uh this text in the the French newspaper Le about the mega basine it was a big issue last year big fight between between the government and the the ecological movements uh because there there was some some conflicts on how to
Use the water um and uh so this was a PL so a lot of arguments scientific arguments to say that uh Mega vacines are not a reasonable way to manage the water in the in France uh another action here against a bank a fr Bank uh that continues to invest in fossil fuel
Energies uh with greenwashing aspects and things like this uh it was not a civil disobedience setion here it’s more like let’s say informing the the public and uh yeah now I’d like to to point maybe some pros aspects for nonviolent Civil Disobedience it’s a simple solution in some sense um
Because the the targets are are quite obvious if you think of fossil fuel companies most of them are not engaged in the good trajectory to limit their um uh the extraction of of oil in the soil so um so they are not sincere and it’s to my opinion uh you can disagree of
Course it’s not legitimate for me it’s legitimate to to consider them as targets um and uh it’s also yeah civil disobedience is also more and more accepted in among the the the scientist in this recent preprint uh it was a survey for 10,000 scientists and half of them were
Mentioning that they could participate to Civil Disobedience actions and uh it’s it’s also a topic that is more and more documented in the in the scientific literature uh it’s it’s quite interesting but of course there are some inconvenience to that um outside France there is a risk of course if you if you
Think of Rosa abov or the colleagues that have been put in jail uh it can be a real problem for your career so I I think in France we are relatively protected so that’s why for instance I’m in some sense engaged in that uh um but there are also more fundamental aspects
Regarding uh to be clear with Notions such as neutrality or this one uh Authority positioning because if you if you go into the public space to say I am a Scientist I have the truth I will explain you how how the world Works uh I don’t think the reaction of the of the
Citizens will be always positive so uh you need to be very careful with that and uh and this is an argument also that has been used in the in the other um in the the reverse sense in this uh in this book Merchant of Doubt written
By two historians Eric Conway and um uh ah uh don’t remember her name um naquez uh she they documented how uh scientists have have lied about for instance uh tobacco Industries but also climate change a lot of things like this they have um used their scientific positioning to say uh wrong things about
The dangers of tobacco of climate change and so on so we need to be careful with this this scient scientific positioning and I’d like to detail a bit more this neutrality question because this this is probably a first reflex to say oh I’m a scientist I have nothing to do with the
The public sphere or if I do this it’s only as a citizen okay I I I changed my role but I’d like to not to defend uh necessarily this this Civil Disobedience based on um on the uh on the on the notion of neutrality but I’d like just to to to to
Explain bit more so this this question of neutrality um it has to do with the fact that as researcher we are included in in a large sociological context for instance we need money for for us just to leave uh for our grants for our activity uh for our community uh and our scientific
Community is also a very um uh sociological object where there are influences Powers uh we have to to be very aware of that and when we realize this thing it’s quite complicated to say science is neutral or we have to be more precise in the definition of
Neutrality for that uh we can introduce the notion of values so values are in some sense different from Facts but in the values you have also to distinguish between the epistemic or scientific values and the contextual values and it helps a lot to to to my
Point of view for instance just to give you examples uh epistemic values for for for science are for instance preciseness uh Simplicity uh here maybe it’s more related to models when you have model of the world you prefer uh um a model with not a lot of variables between two
Models you prefer the the smallest one this is okam okam Razor principle uh you can be also interested in efficiency this is a value probably that is important for for computer science but in both in all those cases this is um those are epistemic values but there are also probably nonepistemic
Values Equity Justice trans transparency that are not really fundamental in doing our research but that can influence a lot uh our way of doing research and for instance uh I could detail it more later but efficiency can uh maybe in between okay it could be influenced in such sense by uh
Contextual U um influences um of course if you have question I can I can stop the the talk um uh and I will close with this text this is a text in in in French I translated it with the with deep l sorry for that um without correcting it
But this is written by the French philosopher Oran beron uh who wrote a very clear text about what is scientific naturality and he comes back to um to this notion introduced by Max vber the sociologist more than one century ago and uh so uh in both important aspects
You have you need to be aware of the Institute ways in which our values uh can bias our view of the world uh the values are important also when you select problems uh in which you are interested in uh and the last sentence is very important he mentions that today we we
Consider neutrality as granted so for a lot of scientists we are neutral but this uh prevent something um that is really important this is the reflexivity so we have to say that neutrality is probably anotic State it’s impossible infusible to reach this uh neutrality but the the trajectory to
Reach the neutrality so being aware of all or bases are important important to be put on the table to precisely try to reach the neutrality but also to be aware of all all dependencies and this is an important problem in the context of anthropos because as you guess um there are
Influences of several actors such as companies such as the state and so on and they have an influence on on our researchers and how they will uh Drive our researchers I realize that basing that it’s more um um it’s more a message that is valid for Applied research but
Probably it has also a relevance for for theoretical researchers as as you um okay so this is the the end of the uh the the the scientist Rebellion aspect I will propose you now the the second answer the uh individual redirection uh based on my field of
Activity so computer science I’m not a let’s say a computer fundamental computer scientist but I I’m a teacher in in computer science so this is this was the the first option I I had I will show you this after so when I realized that I could do something through computer science this
Is the sort of reaction I had so the idea is that we can use the technology provided by computer science and it could be of great help to solve a lot of uh ecological problems uh typically uh I can try to develop uh more efficient softwares uh and uh okay
It’s perfect it will solve a lot of problem or probably I I was aware of this problem uh that uh information Technologies are not dematerialized but this is a this is a narrative that has been really uh has been really used in the in the 20 in the the years
2000 and then I met the collective eano this is a group of cnrs the uh French U uh research uh Institute U institution and this group is uh about eor responsibility and um I discovered some impressive to my opinion um uh uh data about uh the impact of the information and
Communication Technologies in terms of CO2 emissions so first there was this report um this it is not an academic report it has been published in 2018 and the important uh thing is here so uh it would represent 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions with a a trend exponentially uh
Growing Trend so a rapid increase of 9% per year um it was a bit embarrassing with this report because it’s not academic uh it’s uh it was um it was written by this Lobby the shift project and uh we had to to wait 2021 to have a nice paper here
Very long very detailed that try to have more critic View about the uh the impact of ICT in terms of CO2 emissions the numbers are quite comparable but they have they propos some um uncertainties on the on that it’s not a fixed number here uh and some important messages in this
Reports so they they documented all the the studies uh that have try to quantify this is not an easy task as you can imagine so try to quantify the impact of the the devices so it’s not only a question of energy this is a question how you build your your machines uh the
The impact of the infrastructure the cables uh so the impact of data centers okay so a lot of different things to take into account and um they propose two different uh narratives uh they say that it exists there are two different narratives for the the role of ICT in the in the climate
Change so um very opposite roles there is enablement O sorry enable enablement uh role here where ICT could help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions okay and another one where they say we need to be careful to rebound effects and rebound effects are probably what happened for let’s say uh information communication
Technology in the past years because the progress in terms of efficiency is very clear if you think of the mo lows for instance or Kumi low for instance with one kilow of energy you’re able to to do exponentially faster computations okay but in the same time the impact of ICT
Has increased so it’s probably the presence of a rebound effect and in both cases you have two different uh policies that are not incompatible but really different here this is an efficiency policy so let’s say you will try to improve more the Technologies and in the other case you
Will act more on the the use of the technology so this is more the the social component and um yeah I could discuss it more but for instance the the the French government has a very ambiguous uh discourse about those two Notions uh for for those who have
Followed this question soy has been a key word very used in the past year but I’m not completely sure that they use soy as they should probably soy for them is more related to efficiency so is really this idea of having a a qua an absolute value of of of greenhouse gas
Emissions and you have not to exceed it okay efficiency it’s more I give you quantity of energy and how many computations can I do with that okay um is it clear yeah uh so so once you discover all those things you want to teach them so
Maybe I can be uh quite fast uh but we proposed here paper with colleagues of eano to to to describe several um uh teaching units we proposed in our universities and uh we also proposed some uh some difficulties in in trying to uh to to develop those U those
Teachings so the question of legitimacy uh how to introduce that sort of teaching in the the programs uh and these very difficult questions how to go from the knowledge to skills uh because we have students they will for most of them work after that in in companies and how uh will
They Implement all this knowledge concretely in the in the companies where for instance question of soety are quite difficult to implement because in general it contradicts uh principles such as doing profit and things like this so it’s not an easy Tas um we proposed in this teaching yeah we
Implemented here in Marse with some colleagues I don’t know here uh but uh with very various perspectives for instance uh trying to um quantify the energy consumption of of of programming uh just compare different languages and to try to see what is the the most efficient uh but we proposed also to uh
To the students to to read articles uh just to uh for them to realize all computer science and information technology are embedded in their in the in the society okay so they are very various topics uh surveillance capitalism filter bubbles things like this that can be a nice mathematics behind uh and also
Interesting Reflections here about uh uh values in computer science such as efficiency uh but also resilience or robustness uh to me it’s it’s it’s really um it’s really stimulating here uh because it it proposes another approach um that is less uh less classic and uh that makes think to let’s
Say a new paradigm for for computer science of course it’s not completely new robustness to to FS things like this is not new but um yeah maybe it’s something that could have more um have more impact today in a world where resilience is probably something that we we want to to
Develop uh okay and in the on the research side I uh I’ve been interested in the distinction here that exists between the the positive role of artificial intelligence so I will precise it just after uh for instance here on this graphic uh you have several um sustainable
Development goals such as defined by the nation uh unu n Organization for United Nations thank you uh so when you look at these pictures so you have the feeling that AI is is is more benefit beneficial than detrimental but in the same time there is a tension because you know that
For large neural networks um it can take a lot of energy to train the models this is already quite old uh uh article but in this paper they they mention that if you train a very large model it can represent the equivalent of 300 of travels between New York and San
Francisco in terms of flights okay so 300 tons of CO2 approximately so there is clearly a tension that if you want to uh uh deploy massively um Technologies such as AI because they could be beneficial you have also to take that into account and for us it was really a
Surprise to to discover that the narratives around this question uh don’t mention this this tension actually it’s not really a surprise but uh we very rapidly uh by inspecting the literature in machine learning and deep learning we we we have seen in approximately 60 articles that positive applications of machine learning for
Instance to uh for optimizing transportation for smart cities things like that we are completely uh ignorant of the impacts of the technology uh they proposed and to us this is either a biases of techno optimism or question of ignorance of what are this those impacts so the conclusion is that we have
Probably to um to to develop uh more quantification on the impacts of a high uh I can skip that very rapidly there are methodologies such as life cycle assessment uh you can quantify the impact not only of CO2 here this is global warming potential there also the
The use of water the the toxicity the use of resources during the the life cycle of device or a software by showing this picture you can observe that the a lot of that is unnown so probably we have to do more uh to to understand more about the
Impacts but um at the end there is this question if we uh succeed in in describing precisely all the impacts of Technologies such as AI at the end who will decide okay in the perfect world uh itics well informed by scientists and by discussing with citizens uh they will for instance say
Okay this technology has a positive impact or maybe negative so we won’t do it but is it the case today I don’t think so there are a lot of examples that show that we have no data and when we have data sometimes things are uh are not are
Not positive for the the en environment uh and I’m really too long now if if I want to to save time for the questions so but um I just started to to to investigate more precisely description of of AI in the lab so in my lab uh and uh in the
Also in the community of Neuroscience labs in in Mars with naton naton an internship very uh brilliant internship who address two types of questions the question of impact of a high in terms of quantitative impact so what I presented before in brief what’s the energy amount
Of energy required for a high but what is also the sociological impact of AI because precisely in our in our in our lab a lot of researcher have switched from let’s say old methods to new methods using AI it’s it’s a very uh rapid change in the practices in the the
Job practices and I wanted to understand that to me it’s really fundamental to understand uh all the individuals and the community is attached is linked to uh for instance AI if next we want to have um policies regarding for instance environmental issues because you can I I
Don’t believe in or I don’t want Auto itarian action that would come from the top and that would say okay we have to stop high in the lab so uh for a lot of aspects uh competitivity aspects that are questionable of course but it means
Also a lot of students uh will have no carriers if you say we stop so the idea I really want to defend is that we we need to engage all the community in a democratic way to think uh about about those question and to decide
Collectively and to me it has to be um a Time included in the research those Collective debates uh okay so I can skip that um Nat tried several tools to quantify the impact of a high and even for all those tools the results can vary a lot so it’s
Not an easy an easy task to understand really how it works so this is my my conclusion at the at the moment and in terms of qualitative study yeah we have tried to u to to understand more the the values of our colleagues through uh uh um through interviews um to understand the
Narratives regarding the question of Hai so there are three different kinds of narratives neological narratives so a lot are are aware of the fact that deep learning consumes a lot of energy and that it could be a problem there are also technos solutionists AI can be necessary for for else for instance in
Neuroscience we have a lot of applications for for clinics and there there are also a lot of ethical consideration well nothing really new in that but to me the the the approach is important to to make it public okay um regarding the values I have no time
To detail it more uh I I should also explain that and the the last last answer I would like to present to to conclude it’s only three slides this idea I started to develop the collective redirection of a field of research so if I think to my community uh um It’s
Complicated I I don’t feel I’m a neuroscientist of course but I am in a community of of neuroscientists and this community uh has uh had this awareness of the uh the impact of research so a lot of papers in in big academic journals um with various strategies to
Try to uh to limit this impact um and we we we had this idea with uh with uh two colleagues and all the Neuroscience labs in Marseilles so we have a very Collective project that has been funded by by X Mar University and the question question is
What NE science is possible in the anthropos era uh we’ve been inspired a lot by this book uh Heritage and closing um which explains that very synthetically that it’s important to to try to describe all the uh um zombies infrastructures this is the word used so all those technical things that are
Um problematic for environment typically and that we have to close in some situations if we want to um continue in a in a sustainable future and um our project is is divided in three parts um so the application of Neuroscience to environmental crisis so the positive aspect of neuros science
Let’s say here this is the the decrease of the impact of research and this is dialectic here um there is a tension between those two two aspects and at the end uh this is uh the synthes is to try to to know collectively how
And where we can go and just to say that here if you replace Neuroscience by computer science probably uh or information technology um it’s it’s it’s completely uh uh you can translate it literally so uh there’s nothing really uh really specific to to neuroscience and uh so I’d like to conclude on that
Um and the fact that uh we are now trying to develop those reflexivity and debates in our community trying to find moments but institutional moments to make all those previous questions on to put all the previous questions on the table okay and uh there is a positive aspect if we do
That uh when you do a a research that is impactful you will decrease your activity and the second positive point is that we we can try to to find a uh Democratic Solutions so I’m relatively optimistic if everybody plays the the game so and I conclude on that just to say
That those slides are let’s say protected by this lense I want to advertise um to the advisement for this lense proposed by Eric tan and Alexan Mona um this is a license where when you Ed for instance softwares or documents with this license you engage to use it
For sustainable activities so this is one way for instance one small action that you can try to to to promote uh and hope that uh other people will will use it thank you for your [Applause] attention