What if one day, your car made a decision for you… and got it wrong?
A fictional trial once tried to answer a question that no longer feels like fiction: can we put an artificial intelligence on trial like we would a human being?
Behind this courtroom drama lies a deeper dilemma about our digital future: who’s to blame when a machine causes a disaster, but no one truly understands how or why?
Still think the infamous “red button” would save you?
Think again.
_What if you could whisper into an AI’s ear, without anyone noticing?_
Some researchers did exactly that. Not in a novel, but on arXiv, one of the most respected scientific platforms. By inserting invisible messages into their papers, they discreetly influenced the judgment—not of human readers, but of the AI systems reviewing the submissions.
White text on a white background. Microscopic font size. Hidden instructions.
The reader sees nothing. The AI, however, obeys.
This isn’t just a clever technical trick. It’s a sign of the times.
Because in a world where AIs help us read, choose, and decide—what happens when the AI itself is being manipulated, without our knowledge?
And even more unsettling: what’s left of our free will, if even the information we read has already been preformatted… for the machine that filters our perception?
👉 This article explores a new kind of manipulation. Subtle. Sneaky. Invisible. Yet remarkably effective.
260 McDonald’s nuggets in a single order. An Air Canada chatbot lying to a grieving customer. A recruiting algorithm that blacklists everyone over 40.
Welcome to 2024, the year artificial intelligence showed its true colors. And spoiler alert: it’s not pretty.
While everyone was gushing over ChatGPT, companies were brutally discovering a harsh truth: when your machines screw up, YOU pay the price.
Gone are the golden days when you could shrug and mutter “it’s just a computer glitch.” The courts have spoken: your algorithms, your responsibility. End of story.
Europe legislates with the AI Act (180 pages of bureaucratic bliss). The US innovates at breakneck speed. China controls everything. Meanwhile, our companies are discovering that building responsible AI is like flying a fighter jet blindfolded in a thunderstorm.
The most ironic part? This silent revolution won’t just determine who pays for tomorrow’s disasters. It will decide who dominates the global economy for the next 50 years.
So, ready to discover why your next nightmare might go by the sweet name of “algorithm”? 👇
While 6-year-old Chinese children are learning to train AI models to recognize insects in their gardens, French kids the same age are discovering… how to open a word processor.
This gap isn’t just a detail. It’s the symptom of a strategic chasm opening before our very eyes.
On one side, China deploys a plan of breathtaking ambition: 12 years of progressive AI learning to transform every citizen into a “digital native.” The result? It already produces 50% of the world’s top AI researchers compared to 18% for the United States.
On the other, France has just decided “once and for all” after… 4 months of consultation that mobilized 500 contributions. Out of 1.2 million people in the national education system. That’s 0.04% of the educational community.
The French verdict? AI will be authorized starting from 8th grade only, with mandatory training of 30 minutes to 1.5 hours maximum to master the “basics of prompting.” Between reminders about server water consumption.
While Beijing trains entire cohorts of children who will grow up with AI as their natural companion, Paris organizes consultations and offers hour-and-a-half micro-modules.
In 10 years, guess who will truly master this technology that’s already redefining global power balances?
History may judge us on our ability to transform a technological revolution… into administrative reform.
“This AI writes better than I do!”
I hear this sentence at least three times a week. From a marketing director dazzled by ChatGPT. From a graphic designer fascinated by Midjourney. From a student who just discovered that a machine can solve their math exercises in seconds.
And every time, I think to myself: we’ve just crossed an invisible line.
Not the line of technical performance, that’s just computing doing what it’s always done: calculating fast and well. No, we’ve crossed the line of our own devaluation. The one where we start doubting our most human capabilities: thinking, creating, deciding.
As a mathematician who works with AI daily, I see three grand mythological narratives being constructed before our eyes. Three seductive stories that gradually make us abandon something precious: our intellectual autonomy.
The problem isn’t that AI is too performant. It’s that we’re becoming too gullible.
In the lines that follow, I invite you to dissect these three myths with me, myths that are silently redrawing the boundaries of our humanity. Because before knowing what AI can do, it’s about time we remember what we don’t want to lose.
Ready for a little collective exercise in lucidity?
