Two works with an optimistic vision of a responsible digital future won the INfluencia Prize 20231. De-code. A counter-history of digital technology2, by Charleyne Biondi (CB), which shows “how new technologies have progressed
“sively shaped our imaginations” and suggests avenues for “rebuilding common sense”. And Data democracy3, by Thomas Jamet, Florian Freyssenet and Lionel Dos Santos de Sousa (TJ-FF-LDSS) which gives the keys to taking control of our destiny and laying the foundations of “a new social pact in which data would be used for the citizen and not against him. Prologue to the reading of these works, improvised dialogue between winners: Charleyne Biondi questions the three co-authors.
IN: How can we build a European and sovereign “data democracy” when the vast majority of data intelligence players are non-Europeans?
In Data Democracy, we describe how to create an ecosystem of national champions. We suggest redefining the tender procedures for public contracts, favoring French and European digital native companies, and establishing specialists and specific processes within public services for digital purchasing and the construction of the service. public using data. We are also for the creation of a national environment and strategy: both legal, exploiting European regulations (DMA, DSA, RGPD, Data Act, Data Governance Act, AI Act), and financial, in
creating synergies between public and private research; screening and methodical support of our so-called strategic “unicorns”, support from our government institutions, with a State that has become a sovereign business angel thanks to financing by sovereign funds with digital ambition.
To revitalize the French entrepreneurial fabric, we believe that our country has several cards to play in the field of “augmented” medicine, intelligent agriculture and eco-technology. It is therefore necessary to define stricter criteria for the purchase of
digital technologies, modeled on our specific French needs (we recommend using a new standard linked to a French “Citizen Experience” for this) in order to suit the French market. This would also allow
to favor local entrepreneurs, for example, by excluding any company subject to the CLOUD Act (Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act, American federal law on access to personal data particularly in the Cloud, editor's note) from certain markets, such as security interior and the army.
IN: The ethical issues of AI require a form of global governance. An isolated European AI Act would be vain and harmful for the EU. To what extent does technology challenge the nation-state political model?
Technology has always defined civilizations, including nations that became hegemonic over a period of history. Our scientists invent the rules of the game, our engineers create the cards, our entrepreneurs shuffle and deal them, and our states play a lying game of poker as best they can with the hand they are dealt. From gunpowder to electricity to the atomic bomb, the Internet and today AI, there is nothing new: technology has always defined the geopolitical superiority of a State as long as it he knew how to have the best cards in hand and/or play them as a fine strategist. Especially with a bad hand!
What has changed over the past two decades, and we describe it in Data Democracy, is that the Internet giants are international by definition and have become virtual nations in their own right. This need for digital globalization to survive has called into question the paradigm of the old world, where if you owned a Concorde, a TGV or a Minitel, as a nation you had a few aces up your sleeve and the soft power that went with it. We have moved from the era of national industrial flagships to that of stateless meta-enterprises… And what does not belong to any country, but to all at the same time, is difficult to “legislate” and very often defines its own rules, including the first: if you are not with us, you are obsolete. The second would be: if you do not adopt our technologies like other countries, you will lose a competitive advantage
on the international scene. And the third: you cannot define our legal framework because you do not understand our technology; By the time you have understood it and are preparing to legislate, we will have already moved to the next stage: your law will be obsolete before it is even voted on. Technocracy will always trump bureaucracy, and we need to make our monolithic governments more “agile.”
IN: You adopt a resolutely techno-optimistic stance. How can we instill some of this enthusiasm into those who see the technology industry as one of the main obstacles to building a sustainable society, particularly from a
environmental?
In reality, it is digital companies that often top the global ESG (Environment, Social and Governance) rankings, as evidenced by a recent ranking by Time and Statista4. This is the case for Microsoft, Apple and Meta at several scoring agencies. The real environmental damage is caused by our digital carbon footprints linked to the Internet and the cloud. Digital represents 3% to 4% of global emissions, the equivalent of all air traffic, and 2.5% of our national carbon footprint5. Google has announced that it wants to achieve a zero carbon footprint by 20306. Microsoft at the same time wants a
negative carbon footprint7, just like Apple8. Gafam were aware very early on that all this is not viable in the long term, and have invested significant parts of their R&D budgets in ESG, in particular in technologies allowing the development of greener data centers: use free-cooling, replacement of electronic components with photonic components, recovery of heat generated to heat offices, development of eco data centers in Sweden, etc. But real ecological changes will always come from consumers, our governments must lead national campaigns to encourage everyone to practice digital sobriety. We can individually improve our digital carbon footprint by keeping our smartphones longer (the carbon footprint of
their construction is catastrophic), by sorting our emails and deleting our obsolete data regularly – let's sort our data as we do our trash in order to reduce the data stored worldwide. But also by favoring wifi rather than 4G/5G, by purchasing reconditioned or second-hand digital equipment, by reducing the time spent on digital screens, or by consuming less online videos, including films and streaming series. We
We must all become citizens aware of our digital carbon footprint.
