3 et 4 juin 2023 à Paris
7e Congrès de la FICDC / 7. Kongress der FICDC
3 juin: Conférences thématiques sur les défis actuels/ 4 juin: assemblée générale annuelle de la Fédération internationale des coalitions pour la diversité culturelle.
Der scheidende Präsident der Föderation, Beat Santschi, begrüßte die Versammelten und umriss die Aufgaben, die sich uns heute stellen.
«The theme of this congress is "Cultural Diversity in the Digital Era: Challenges and Opportunities". We live in a time of unprecedented technological changes that are transforming the ways we create, produce, distribute and access cultural goods and services. These changes offer new possibilities for cultural expression, participation and innovation, but also pose significant challenges for the protection and promotion of cultural diversity, such as concentration of power, market dominance, algorithmic bias, data protection, digital divide and cultural rights.
Well, every word I said so far is not what I wanted to say but what the artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT suggested I should say on my instruction: “Write an opening speech for the next congress of the IFCCD, 5 minutes”. Interesting, isn’t it? AI even knows the theme of our congress “Cultural Diversity in the Digital Era: Challenges and Opportunities”, although we didn’t set one and there’s no such thing on our website. But it could have been something like this, no? So AI is producing something similar to reality, and it will be our task as human beings to discern between the real thing and the look-alike.» ...
«In this context, we need to rethink and adapt our policies, regulations and practices to ensure that cultural diversity is not only preserved but also enhanced in the digital environment. We need to foster a digital cultural governance that is inclusive, transparent, accountable and participatory. We need to harness the potential of artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies to support creativity and diversity. We need to strengthen our cooperation and solidarity among different actors and regions to address common issues and share best practices.
That again was from ChatGPT’s proposal of my opening speech. It does tell you: We need to harness the potential of artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies to support creativity and diversity. YEs, I guess, in some ways we should, in other ways maybe rather not.
But anyway, what I really wanted to say, is that it feels incredibly great to see, hear, feel and smell all of you human beings in all your physical reality, something that once used to be normal. But only a short time after our last congress in October 2019 in Lomé, Togo, everything changed dramatically, as we all know, and it lasted for the most part since then.
But now, on this renewed note of optimism, let’s enjoy this offline congress! » Programme