Thematic trimester: Digital Humanities and Artificial Intelligence

AISSAI logo completed with the title "Digital Humanities and Artificial Intelligence".

Trimester website

Computational Approaches including artificial intelligence have for some years now enriched the methods of digital humanities, for example for the analysis of the composition of pictorial works, the attribution of authorship for literary, scientific and journalistic texts, the automatic recognition of handwritten texts, the analysis of complex networks of knowledge circulation, etc. The aim of the AI/HN thematic semester is to create the conditions for pragmatic and prospective reflection on the practices and objects that emerge at the interface between these two very dynamic fields. In this crossing, classical and fundamental issues in human sciences are renewed while shedding light on the new questions of artificial intelligence.

Thus, the question of the integration of expert knowledge, which in AI has dimensions concerning data sets, algorithmic architectures and mathematics, renews in the human sciences the questions of the forms of erudition, the modalities of access to sources and the constitution of corpora. The human sciences are thus led to a certain form of explicitation, via AIs, of operations that often remain otherwise in the domain of the talent or intuition of individual scholars. This effort of transparency and explicitation builds in return paths and methods for the integration of expert knowledge in AI.

Similarly, the question of explicability also affects the data, algorithmic and mathematical dimensions of AI in a global way while encountering fundamental questions in digital humanities. For example, the relations between micro and macro levels of analysis in the humanities, or between emic and etic categories are profoundly transformed by AI algorithms, which weave new links at the heart of these essential polarities in the humanities. In return, the necessarily critical approach of the humanities, where a result only makes sense if the approach that produces it can be put in relation to other results and other methods, contributes to the concrete construction of explicability and transparency for these algorithms.

New types of interdisciplinary research collectives are being built around these emerging research themes in France, Europe and internationally. For the humanities, this corresponds to a long-term trend in which data analysis and acquisition methods are increasingly based on the’ hard’ sciences. For artificial intelligence, this corresponds to the need to confront real and complex data sets in order to meet, for instance, the challenges of explicability and the integration of expert knowledge. The purpose of the IA/HN thematic semester is also to accompany and contribute to structuring the constitution of these new research collectives at national and international level.

This trimester allows the visit of 4 international scientists for 1 to 2 months stay in CNRS unit. Details about the invited scientist are available here

Multiple colloquia organised by visiting scientists, a school and a final conference are planned during this trimester. More information on the Trimester website

This trimester is supported by the CNRS foundation

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