We continue our Lunch at the Circle theme of artificial intelligence with a very different angle on the subject on December 2:

Is AI a threat or a promise?

Can AI replace/mimic a real person? A true and real example – with Maxime Girardeau.

Next L@C on December 2.

Some people worry that artificial intelligence will replace people and make us superfluous. Mass unemployment, if not the end of the world. Other people think that AI has the potential to find a cure for cancer and perhaps avoid a new nuclear war.

What will it be? Can artificial intelligence replace people? Can it mimic personalities?

As it develops, what will the consequences be for people, society and business?

Maxime Girardeau is a French author and consultant who explores these issues in an incredibly real way in his latest novel “Je te mens”. One of the personalities in the book is generated by ChatGPT, not a fictional ChatGPT but a very real one. In other words, the book is written by two “authors”, Maxime Girardeau and ChatGPT. One of the book’s main characters, “Loïe”, is, literally, the output from ChatGPT.

Who is really the author of the book?

Is the story credible?

Maxime will share with us how this happened, how it worked, and his views on what implications this may have for real life and for business.

The presentation will be in French. A French language invitation will follow soon.

Maxime Girardeau:

• Just published his third book, a novel written using and exploring chatGPT as one of the characters
• VP of Cloud Centre Of Excellence for Southern Central Europe at Capgemini
• Maxime Girardeau on LinkedIn
• Maxime’s books on Amazon

This L@C event will be an exploration of how generative AI (genAI) became a character in his recent book and how important education and training will be for the future AI transformation.

Maxime will give a short presentation of his book, “Je te mens” to explain the exploratory nature of this project, which is on the borderline between creative and technological exploration.

He will share his conviction about how important the anthropomorphic aspect of genAI is and how it will profoundly shake up organisations, change our ways of working and require new skill sets.

Maxime will also share what he believes to be the core of AI transformation for companies over the next 10 to 15 years. Just as digital technology has profoundly transformed companies, AI will force them to design, develop and protect their “global corpus”. This means, not just their data, but also their processes, know-how, organisation etc.

To conclude, we will discuss the importance of education, training and the ethics underlying this whole transformation. However powerful it may be, genAI and tomorrow’s multimodal AI will also be a potentially dangerous depersonalisation tool for human organisations.

Are you worried about the potentially devastating consequences of AI? Or do you see it as a great tool for making societal, scientific and economic progress? In either case, this is an event for you.

Facts:

• Date: Monday December 2
• Time: 12.00-14.00 (welcome from 12:00, seated by 12:30, close at 14.00)
• Place: contact us for information
  
• Speaker: Maxime Girardeau
• Cost: 63 €: aperitif, main course, dessert, wines, water, coffee

Book now on this link

• contact us for information

“Je te mens” by Maxime Girardeau, book cover

Lunch at the Circle event on October 14, 2024

Integrating AI in our daily business – a threat or a panacea, with Thor Whalen

Thor Whalen co-founded and was the CTO of the originally French AI innovation company OtoSense, which was based in Silicon Valley and was then acquired by Analog Devices (https://otosense.analog.com).

Thor will share his experience with OtoSense and his journey of implementing AI into business operations.

Thor will be able to share his hands-on view and vision for the future of the LLM invasion and give us some pros and cons concerning its use in our daily businesses.

We’ll discuss how difficult it was and still is to integrate AI effectively into business operations and propose some of the main reasons why this is the case.

Next, we’ll explore how generative AI has expanded possibilities, making language-based tasks—content generation, data extraction, and research—more accessible than ever. This opens up new opportunities for workflow automation, insights from unstructured data, and collaboration tools, but it also introduces risks like privacy concerns, bias, and overreliance on AI.

Thor will provide practical advice on what to do—and what to avoid—when integrating these technologies into your business, along with strategic considerations like balancing automation with human oversight and investing in AI literacy. He will also share some predictions on where this space is heading and how you can position yourself to take advantage of these evolving tools.

Key areas of focus may include (depending on the exchanges):

• Opportunities: Data-driven insights, task automation, augmenting human expertise, new product offerings, and multilingual support.
• Risks: Privacy, bias, overconfidence, and the challenge of maintaining collaboration quality.

Finally, we’ll discuss strategic approaches to AI integration, including exploring open-source alternatives and ensuring human oversight in AI workflows.

Thor Whalen bio

Thor Whalen is an American-born data scientist who spent most of his formative years studying in France (and Italy and Germany). He earned a PhD in mathematics (specialising in graph theory) and a Masters in computer science from Emory University, USA. His career spans diverse sectors, focusing primarily on data science consulting in business process analysis and automation, online marketing, behavioural modelling, natural language processing, and sound recognition.

Thor co-founded OtoSense, a Silicon Valley-based AI company specialising in sound and vibration analytics for predictive maintenance, security, and healthcare. As the CTO, he led the development of innovative AI-driven software solutions until Analog Devices acquired the company. Following the acquisition, he transitioned to Director of AI and Machine Learning at Analog Devices, where he refined his software architecture and design expertise.

In 2022, Thor moved back to France, where he continues contributing to the open-source community, developing tools to improve development velocity and enhance human-machine communication. He is also an active consultant, helping businesses craft AI strategies and software solutions while conducting workshops on cutting-edge technologies. His career reflects a blend of deep technical knowledge and a commitment to making technology more accessible and effective for various industries.

Contact us if you would like to participate in this L@C lunch event in Paris on October 14, 2024.

AI-generated charts based on human-written tasting notes comparing wine characteristics from the Loire and Steiermark, as used by the CMB Concours Mondial de Bruxelles