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Has artificial intelligence become the new mantra of our times? ? In many sectors, the message almost sounds obvious: AI will inexorably shape our future. A well-oiled speech, hammered home by the big tech groups (OpenAI which is multiplying initiatives to ensure its profitability, Google and its many projects, Meta, or Apple with Apple Intelligence), but also by their cronies from other circles.
This rhetoric of inevitability has imposed itself in the public debate with implacable force. From medicine to education, including defense and industry, no sector escapes this new technological doxa. However, beneath this veneer of unanimity, dissonant voices are emerging. A team of researchers from the Center for Applied Ethics at UMass Boston University is challenging these well-established certainties. Their analysis dismantles the arguments of the “technoprophets” and invites us to rethink our relationship with this technology. Beyond the hype and the dazzling promises, what is the reality of this so-called revolution?? Do the benefits really justify such massive and hasty adoption??
Economic performance below expectations
The private sector never stops extolling the merits of AI. Start-ups are multiplying, investments are soaring (a little too much), and consultants are predicting a radical transformation of the world of work. But behind this media hype lies a much less glorious reality. The economic analysis published by The Economist in July 2024 paints a mixed picture: the benefits are still marginal and productivity gains are struggling to materialize.
Large groups, caught up in a frantic race for innovation, are deploying AI solutions, sometimes without any real strategic vision. Forced automation generates hidden costs: team training, process adaptation, system maintenance. Even more worrying, some companies are sacrificing essential human skills on the altar of technological modernization.
Education in peril in the face of the AI surge
The educational environment is also going through a period of profound change. Institutions are investing massively in AI tools, upsetting centuries of educational traditions. The exercise of the dissertation, the cornerstone of intellectual training, is particularly threatened. How to assess a student's thinking skills when algorithms can produce increasingly sophisticated texts ? What to do about plagiarism ?
Beyond assessment issues, it is the entire relationship to knowledge that is turned upside down. Memorization, structuring of thought, confrontation with original texts: so many fundamental skills potentially weakened by excessive use of AI. Researchers also warn of the risk of seeing a growing cognitive dependence develop on these digital 4.0 tools.
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The militarization of artificial intelligence is drawing the boundaries of a new global geopolitics with dizzying implications. Beyond martial declarations of technological superiority, it is the very foundations of the international balance that are being shaken. In this new digital cold war, the United States, China and Russia are engaged in a silent battle for control of autonomous weapons systems.
In this race, some fundamental questions are nevertheless largely being avoided. The countries of the South, excluded from this competition due to lack of resources, see the specter of increased military dependence looming. Their territories could become full-scale laboratories for technologies that are still in their infancy. Yemen, for example, the scene of clashes between combat drones for about ten years, perhaps prefigures this worrying future.
The legal vacuum surrounding these new forms of conflict is alarming experts in international law. How can the Geneva Conventions, adopted in 1864, be applied to machines whose decisions are beyond any human control ? Existing protocols, designed for conventional warfare, are thus completely obsolete when faced with weapons capable of learning and autonomy.
The analysis of the researchers at the Center for Applied Ethics therefore calls on us to rethink our relationship with AI. Rather than blindly submitting to technological dictates, they prefer a reflective and measured approach. Their message challenges the prevailing conformism: innovation is not an end in itself, but a means to human development.
This debate can no longer be reduced to a simplistic alternative between blissful technophilia and sterile technophobia. The issues – economic, social, environmental – require in-depth collective reflection. What place should automation have in our societies? How can we preserve our intellectual autonomy in the face of decision-making support systems? How can we guarantee equitable access to these technologies while limiting their ecological footprint? The answer to these questions cannot come from experts or industrial players alone and ideally requires the involvement of all citizens in a renewed democratic debate. The future is not written and AI will not change this reality. Between technological submission and radical rejection, a third path is emerging: that of an enlightened mastery of AI in the service of the common good. It is up to us to take it, while there is still time.
- The promises of AI are often exaggerated, with economic and productive gains still limited despite massive investments.
- The rapid adoption of AI poses risks to education, human skills, and the global geopolitical balance.
- A thoughtful and democratic approach is essential to integrate AI for the common good.
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