Publish at September 24 2025 Updated September 24 2025
If there's one added value that can be attributed to globalization, it's its ability to make people realize that they can't evolve alone. One of the proofs of this world order finds a strong echo in the objectives of sustainable development, since they are addressed to the whole of humanity. As an African proverb so aptly puts it, one hand cannot bind a bundle.
Addressing the issue of collective intelligence in relation to artificial intelligence is yet another call for symbiosis rather than division, for building a planet where social justice reigns. However, it seems that the effects of AI in certain areas of activity, such as work, hardly facilitate the establishment of this much-desired social justice, which would rhyme with the very essence of collective intelligence understood as "a dynamic and collaborative process of producing reflective and actionable knowledge in the face of a complex work situation".
In other words, it refers to the ability of players to combine their ideas and knowledge to resolve a complex situation. Except that, with the advent of AI, this possibility has already been ruled out, as some people are sidelined before they even get started. Which leads us to question the ability of this technology to promote the common good. In this article, we'll look at a number of case studies.
It's clear that, for some workers, AI makes it easier to perform repetitive tasks, but for others, it simply removes them from their jobs, pushing them towards retraining. A study carried out by IBM only adds to this state of affairs, since according to it, 40% of workers will have to convert over the next three years as a result of AI.
While for those at the top of the digital pyramid, this is a turning point marking the beginning of high productivity, for the employees - the most numerous ones at that - the expansion of AI turns to their disadvantage, further widening the gap between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. In a plea presented to the National Assembly, Fabien Gay, Senator (PCF) of Seine-Saint-Denis asserts:
"AI must be a common asset of humanity, put at the service of human, ecological and scientific progress. Not a tool held by a few billionaires for their own profit".
This fear of the resurgence of profit is also shared by Geoffrey Hinton, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2024, who, despite being one of the founding fathers of AI, sounds the alarm bells on this subject, saying: "In reality, the rich are going to use AI to replace employees. This will create massive unemployment and a huge increase in profits. It will enrich a minority and impoverish most people".
Clearly, if we take this point of view, AI, despite lightening the load on repetitive tasks - but lowering the wages of employees - reinforces the already existing gap between the rich on the one hand, and the poor on the other, thus undermining respect for human dignity, says Hinton, since every person derives value from their work; to take away this value would be to diminish them as human beings.
Every technological or scientific evolution the world has ever known has most often been aimed at improving human living conditions. Let's remember that mechanization has reduced the effort required to perform tasks in factories or in the fields, the Internet has brought geographical borders closer together, and AI has democratized knowledge, among other things.
Seen from this angle, we might venture to believe that AI has the potential to serve the common good. This is not entirely untrue, as there is now an AI firefighter in Marseille, for example. In fact, similar in appearance to a surveillance camera, the firefighter AI, the "eye" of the Marseille Marine Fire Brigade, films the massifs and the city of the King of Spain from a distance of 250m, with a view to detecting the slightest outbreak of fire likely to destroy all the houses in the heavily wooded area surrounding them.
The camera, which houses a machine-learning AI device, is capable of detecting the slightest sign of fire, which is then analyzed by the Marseille emergency services operations center, which is responsible for verifying the veracity of the signal sent to them and taking action if necessary. Despite the fact that its accuracy is set to improve, in Marseille, this system has already been twice as fast as local residents in sounding the alarm.
The idea of developing new information and communication technologies (NICTs) breathed new life into the democratization of information and, above all, freedom of expression. This has led to information overload on the one hand, and the spread of misinformation and lies on the other. This effect is further accentuated by the advent of artificial intelligence, which uses an algorithm to smear a third party's reputation on the basis of existing data. A photo of the late Pope Francis in a down jacket is rightly highlighted. One would have thought that fashion and modernity would have integrated the Vatican walls, but that was never the case.
This manipulation of the image, which may seem amusing to some, really undermines the pontiff's reputation and the importance he attaches to his duties, but above all it highlights the ability of AI to manipulate reality in such a way that it becomes one with the virtual, or the imagination of the third party behind the work. This elusiveness of the world around us gradually makes us strangers, ignorant of the environment we should be mastering, undermining our freedom of opinion and judgment. Measures must therefore be taken to limit the impact of AI on human life.
There are a number of ways to reduce the harm caused by AI in society:
References
"40% of workers will have to retrain in the next three years due to AI", online - Développez.com - Bruno, https://intelligence-artificielle.developpez.com/actu/347575/40-pourcent-des-travailleurs-devront-se-reconvertir-au-cours-des-trois-prochaines-annees-en-raison-de-l-IA-selon-une-etude-d-IBM/
FNEGE Médias, "What is collective intelligence", online https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oG4U8lqeR8
France 24, L'AI au service de l'intelligence collective, online https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFjiaOa9jHY
Diallo Kesse, "Geoffrey Hinton, 'father of AI', predicts that artificial intelligence will enrich the rich and impoverish the poor", online https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oG4U8lqeR8
REF24, "le pouvoir du faux à l'assaut de la démocratie", online https://laref.org/2024/08/12/le-pouvoir-du-faux-a-lassaut-de-la-democratie/
Perret Michel, 1983, "Femmes et machines au XIXème siècle", online https://www.persee.fr/doc/roman_0048-8593_1983_num_13_41_4651
Rochefort Mathilde, "Ce pape en doudoune est un deepfake, mais classe, mais deepfake, mais..", online. https://www.clubic.com/technologies-d-avenir/intelligence-artificielle/actualite-462786-ce-pape-en-doudoune-est-un-deepfake-mais-classe-mais-deepfake-mais.html
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