WAICF - special feedback edition

Hello everyone,

Here I am again, this time without a camera, to give you some feedback on the WAICF (Worldwide Artificial Intelligence Cannes Festival). For those who haven't been following, it has become a prominent event in the AI world, despite only existing for 3 years. In fact, having attended all the editions, I can tell you that the progress is undeniable. Marco Landi, the creator of WAICF, during the gala dinner organized on the first night, proudly stated that he intends to make this event the Davos of AI. I'm not sure I want to pay the ticket price of Davos, but one thing is certain, the presence of Yann Le Cun, Bruno Le Maire accompanied by his new Secretary of State for Digital Affairs, Marina Ferrari, among others, demonstrates the significance of the event!

16,000 visitors from 70 countries. It is certainly an international success. Moreover, one of the specificities of the festival since its first edition is that all the presentations (including interviews) are conducted in English to emphasize its international dimension. Bruno Le Maire mentioned a USA - Europe axis that dominates AI, with France having a predominant role in Europe, but it seems to overlook Asia too quickly, as it is not well represented at WAICF in this battle. However, Asia was very visible at CES this year. We will keep an eye on the trend next year.

Let's start with what makes a salon like this one likely to succeed in its endeavor: it's not just about AI!

The salon, for example, is invaded by robots. Robots that seek to mimic humans, as we could see at the EuropAI booth (again Marco Landi), the robots from Enchanted Tools (the teams of Jér?me Monceaux, who had already co-created Pepper), and many others, all trying to highlight their advantages: closer to human expressions, more integrated with languages, more expressive, cuter. They all certainly incorporate their fair share of AI, but it is surprising to see so many robots at the salon.

We also find their digital counterparts, animated characters controlled by software, appearing here in the form of a hologram, or there on a kiosk. I note with interest the assistants from QuestIT. Virtual assistants or digital humans, as they were presented to me, they remind me of the human avatars from Samsung's Neon project that caused a buzz at CES 2020. Among the numerous conferences at the festival, we were proud to discuss with Marco Landi (whom we invited to our roundtable) and Philippe Murat from AFPA about the contributions of AI to immersive training in virtual reality.

Speaking of which, let me say a few words about it. We took a specific angle, that of the Turing test. Or how a robot piloting an avatar in a virtual environment could pass as a human being. I mentioned this point in one of my recent articles:

Are you a human or a robot?

It was interesting to see how we interpreted the role and place of avatars. First, intelligent assistants for Marco, characters that lend credibility to the worlds in which they evolve for me, easily implementable and scriptable actors for Julien, and actors serving training, especially soft skills, for Philippe (the intention is what matters, isn't it, Philippe?)

Many uniforms at the salon: firefighters (both from the army and civil), military personnel, police officers: it is clear that AI is taking action. And it is certain that there is no shortage of use cases. Moreover, everyone is interested in training teams to accelerate in AI (I take this opportunity to mention the DoYouSpeak AI offering developed and promoted by Inetum).

We came across several ESNs at the salon, as well as software publishers who offer tools that are sometimes ancillary but essential to AI. For example, I want to mention my friends at Saagie, a platform mainly focused on data, without which, as we know, we can't do much in AI. And a mention also for the excellent Interact Software platform, which, even though it is not currently filled with machine learning, is certainly a very good tool for those concerned about the efficiency of their machines.

Many delegations, whose goal is certainly to see how their members or the corporations they represent can benefit from AI, just like the exchange we had with Patrick Martin, the president of Medef, during his delegation's visit to the Inetum booth (while we were conducting an acculturation workshop for their members in parallel).

In the end, of course, we heard a lot about, touched, and tested generative AI. It was obvious, and we were all waiting for it. But what seems most important to me is that we are now thinking much more extensively about a future of AI that is certainly much more hybrid; a combination of algorithms that will surpass the limits of Generative AI, harness its power, with better control, predictability, and goal management. I have believed this for a while, as I find the doors opened by self-learning and reinforcement learning technologies fascinating. But it's not just me saying it, it's Mr. Yann Le Cun. This leads me to believe that we will continue to experience exciting WAICF events in the future! See you At WAICF 2025!