Science at UM [S04-ep07]: Artificial intelligence in the service of debate
This week in Science at UM, Mathieu Lafourcade, researcher at the Montpellier Laboratory of Computer Science, Robotics, and Microelectronics (Lirmm), talks to us about the Aren digital debate platform. Benoit Ildefonse, director of the Géosciences Montpellier (GM) laboratory, will present Voyage en géosciences, a round table organized by Oreme and GM at La Panacée on November 12, 2024. The program is broadcast every Wednesday at 6 p.m. on Divergence FM 93.9.
Debate is apparently a French passion. In any case, it is an essential element of a vibrant and healthy democracy. In a representative system such as ours, its most powerful embodiment is the National Assembly. But how much space is given to direct debate, to citizen debate? Local consultations, whether in villages, towns, or cities, are often criticized for leaving few decisions to the community. More often than not, it is a matter of choosing the color of a street lamp rather than discussing the usefulness of the street lamp itself.
Yet the desire is clearly there, as evidenced by the success of the Great National Debate launched by Emmanuel Macron in 2019 in the midst of the yellow vest movement. 10,000 meetings were organized throughout France, 16,000 complaint books were opened, and nearly 2 million contributions were recorded on the website. So many resources were expended for nothing, or very little.
So how can we revive the possibility of an agora on the scale of a city, a country, or an association without being directly dependent on politics? Perhaps through artificial intelligence. At LIRMM, the Montpellier-based laboratory for computer science, robotics, and microelectronics, researchers have been working for several years on a debate platform based on technology that uses automatic language processing.
Since 2016, they have partnered with Lirdef, the interdisciplinary laboratory for research in teaching, education, and training, to make this platform available to middle and high school students with the aim of developing their argumentative skills and critical thinking. This project, initially called Aren and then Aren Dia, will be completed in 2025. The platform is also available to local authorities and associations to support debate.
So what does this platform look like? How does this automatic language processing technology work? What does AI have to do with it? And, of course, what is its added value in the emergence of new agoras? We discuss this with Mathieu Lafourcade, researcher at Lirmm and co-leader of this project with Manuel Bachtold from Lirdef.
To go further:
- Read the article Collaborative machine learning system for debate practice
- Visit the AREN platform
Finally, our last-minute guest will be Benoit Ildefonse, director of the Montpellier Geosciences Laboratory, who will present Voyage en géosciences, a round table organized by Oreme and Montpellier Geosciences on the theme "From habitable planets to critical mineral resources." It will take place at La Panacée on November 12, 2024.
At UM Science, you have the program, so let's get started!
Co-production: Divergence FM / University of Montpellier
Host: Lucie Lecherbonnier
Interview: Lucie Lecherbonnier / Aline Périault
Production: Tom Chevalier
Listen to the program “A l’UM la science” on Divergence FM 93.9
