Conference on Artificial Creativity

2026-04-27 → 2026-04-29

The rapid spread of “artificial intelligence systems,” particularly through large language models (LLMs), is transforming our relationship with knowledge, texts, images, and, ultimately, the world. While these technologies (driven by a small number of for-profit companies and fueled by massive investments) offer new possibilities, they also pose a risk of homogenizing thought by imposing the dominant worldviews of major tech companies.

In the face of this threat, the humanities—and literature in particular—have a crucial role to play: that of valuing and presenting the plurality of intelligences and cultures through their hermeneutic tools. Beyond technical questions, AI is redefining our relationships with text, images, and creativity itself. The question is no longer whether machines are intelligent, but how they contribute to redefining intelligence and the cultural objects they produce.

At the heart of these reflections lies a cross-cutting question: what is creativity in the age of artificial intelligence systems—and, more fundamentally, what is intelligence itself? The conference aims to explore the shifting boundaries between human creation and algorithmic production, by bringing together hermeneutic and critical approaches from literature, philosophy, art, design, media, and the cultural industries. The goal is to examine how certain algorithms model a formal definition of creativity, sometimes at the cost of reducing it to computational logic. In doing so, we question the symbolic value our society attributes to certain creative activities, the reasons behind this valuation, as well as the epistemological, cultural, and political consequences implied by this redefinition, which is subject to the logic of mass automation. The widespread and uncritical adoption of products developed by a limited number of technology companies collectively confronts us with the epistemological challenges of redefining the objects produced by these tools, such as texts and images.

Speakers: Dominique Cardon (Sciences Po); Lai Tze Fan (University of Waterloo), Geoffrey Rockwell (University of Alberta), Marcello Vitali Rosati (University of Montreal), Virginie Juillard (Sorbonne University), Valérie Pisano (University of Montreal), Jean Luis Gastaldi (ETH Zurich), Lauren Tilton (University of Richmond), Alexia Schneider (University of Montreal), Shiming Shen (Université Côte d'Azur), Sophia Galière (Université Côte d'Azur), Maria Giulia Dondero (FNRSH), Everardo Reyes (Paris 8), Marta Severo (University of Paris Nanterre), Luca Paltrinieri (University of Rennes), Philippe Robert (Université Côte d'Azur), Marco Winckler (Université Côte d'Azur), Nicolas Pélissier (Université Côte d'Azur), Maud Boissac (City of Cannes), Marianne Reboul (ENS Lyon)...

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Program