Philosophy for thinking about artificial intelligence

AI is the focus of much attention, promise and criticism. Yet in the midst of such a debate, it is sometimes difficult to make sense of it all. In his PhD thesis under the supervision of philosopher Michaël Fœssel, François Levin takes a philosophical approach to thinking about our relationship with this technology. He was awarded the Prix Michel Serres de thèse interdisciplinaire 2025.

Prior to his PhD, François Levin was a rapporteur at the Conseil national du numérique, where he actively contributed to the Villani report on artificial intelligence (2018), a reference document for the national AI strategy. His career illustrates a constant commitment to a critical, cross-disciplinary and engaged approach to contemporary digital issues.

In his work, he first attempts to understand how critical discourses on artificial intelligence, which call into question the dominant laudatory discourses, fit into two frameworks of philosophy of techniques. 

On the one hand, there is the critique that sees these technologies as one of the consequences of a change in modes of governance, in which security, control and surveillance take on greater importance. This paradigm is inspired in particular by the work of Michel Foucault.

The other paradigm (with the work of Martin Heidegger, for example), sees in these technologies the triumph of calculation, where the automation of our world goes ever further. This would cause us to lose the “incalculable” in our relationship with things, and deprive us of some of our capacities.

François Levin outlines the limits of these two paradigms in capturing the totality of what AI encompasses. Drawing on the reflections of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, he attempts to show that AI could bring about alterity, decentralization and openness. Without denying the criticisms, the aim is to analyze their emancipating potential.

If philosophy is transformed by contact with AI technologies, it can, in turn, enlighten and guide their development.

*LINX, a laboratory of École Polytechnique, Institut Polytechnique de Paris, 91120 Palaiseau, France