Recent publications
Anthropic vs. the Pentagon: An Imperial Marketing Stunt
In the latest issue of Le Monde diplomatique, I revisit the conflict that pitted Anthropic against the Pentagon, in an attempt to analyze this episode and go beyond the dominant media narrative. The dispute has all the hallmarks of a hit series: a CEO – Dario Amodei – a freedom-loving idealist standing up to the tyrants of the Trump administration. Except that Anthropic’s...
Averting the Digital Sovereignty Trap
The following text is based on my “keynote provocation” during a panel discussion on “What Digital Sovereignty Means for Civil Society”, organized by the Swiss chapter of the Internet Society (ISOC) in Zurich on March 27th, 2026. Today’s debate on digital sovereignty feels like an intense case of déjà vu: For the better part of the past thirty years, Europe’s...
Odyssey 2.0: Undoing the Machine-World
Three years ago Odyssée 2.0 came out. This book (in French) was born from a photographic and literary project freely inspired by Homer’s myth. Together with photographer Alexa Brunet, we traced Ulysses’ wanderings through Technopolis, a fictional and dystopian “Smart City.” Below is the translation of the introduction I wrote for that occasion —it had never been...
The Practical Limits of Algorithmic Transparency: Lessons from France
This paper draws on a talk given a few months ago at the International Conference “Algorithmic transparency and the digital rule of law”, at the Sciences Po Paris Law School. Thanks to Lucas Anjos and Rebecca Mignot-Mahdavi for the invitation. Abstract In the face of concerns raised by AI systems in recent years, transparency has emerged as a central governance principle, enshrined in...
“Thinking About AI” (edited volume)
The edited volume Penser l’intelligence artificielle – Enjeux philosophiques, politiques et culturels de l’automatisation numérique (Thinking About Artificial Intelligence: Philosophical, Political, and Cultural Issues in Digital Automation) is out in French. It is edited by Anne Alombert, Alban Leveau-Vallier, and Baptiste Loreaux, published by Presses du réel. I had the pleasure of...
Two Post-Marxist Takes on The Political Economy of AI
Yesterday, we held the first session of the “AI critique” seminar hosted by the CIS, which I co-organize with my colleagues Marie Garin and Olivier Alexandre. We had the distinct privilege of welcoming two scholars whose work has profoundly shaped critical debates on the political economy of artificial intelligence and its repercussions in international relations: Cecilia Rikap (Associate...
Seminar “Critiquing AI: Artificial Intelligence Through the Lens of its Controversies”
After a year-long hiatus, the “AI Critique” seminar returns to the CNRS Center for Internet and Society. For this edition, Marie Garin (postdoctoral researcher at CIS) and I are pleased to be joined by sociologist Olivier Alexandre as co-facilitators of these meetings organized as part of the “Critique of Artificial Intelligence” working group of the GDR Internet, AI and...
The Eternal Return of Facial Recognition
This Op-Ed is adapted from a text originally published on AOC. In May 2025, Gérald Darmanin was getting restless. Overtaken on the right by his successor at the Ministry of Interior, Bruno Retailleau, the new Minister of Justice apparently found it difficult to hang up his apron as “France’s top cop.” So he pulled out of his hat a seemingly novel proposal: the legalization of...
AI and the Lessons of Past Labor Struggles
In a new article for Le Monde diplomatique, with researchers Maud Barret Bertelloni and Pauline Gourlet, we look back at the relevance of 1970’s French trade union critiques of computerization to inform contemporary struggles against AI. The issues were more or less the same as today (loss of skills, worker isolation, amplification of managerial surveillance, etc.), but the analysis and...
Olympic Surveillance Between Paris and London
Thanks to Emma Mc Cluskey and Akos Kopper, a cross-interview with Myrtille Picaud and Pete Fussey has just been published in the journal PARISS (Political Anthropological Research on International Social Sciences). In it, we look back at surveillance during the Paris 2024 and London 2012 Olympic Games. Abstract Pete Fussey conducted extensive research on Olympic surveillance in London, and...