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Stanford & DICEN Conference « Norms in the Age of AI »

On May 11 and 12, a second conference "Norms in the Age of Intelligent Machines: Bodies, Knowledge, Governmentality", organized by Armen Khatchatourov (DICEN-UGE) and Shane Denson (Stanford), under France-Stanford Global Studies grant, will take place at CNAM. Donato Ricci and Gabriel Alcaras, researchers at the médialab, will be speaking at this event.

Event, Conference

CNAM, Amphi Jean Baptiste Say, 292 rue St-Martin, Paris

Abstract 

The prospect of intelligent machines challenges our societal norms. Matters of debate over the past half century concerning digital networks – e.g. access, privacy, subjectivity, participation – must be reconsidered in the age of machine learning. More specifically, the proliferation of AI-based systems leads to new ways of understanding what normativity is. Social norms don’t change overnight; however, the mechanisms and processes that drive these changes are increasingly influenced by AI-based infrastructures, characterized by a heightened level of automation, while being opaque, inscrutable, and anthropomorphic.

Faced with such conditions, we have to ask, first, what it means to instill or break a norm and, second, what norms even mean or represent. This landscape presents both profound challenges to maintain just and stable means of interaction and, at the same time, novel and creative opportunities for alternative modes of being.

The question of AI normativity is not only about regulation, not only about AI amplification of existing norms or discrimination, not only about fairness, but about how the AI transforms our very relation to the norms, or even about what a “norm” could mean in the AI conditions of perpetual adjustment of all forms of social interactions.

The two conferences (December 4-5, 2025 at Stanford, May 11-12 2026 in Paris) will address the imbrication of two movements: how the evolution of social norms is reflected in new algorithmic practices, and how these algorithms influence social norms in various domains. It will also investigate the intricate relation between the rise of AI and the (post-)neo-liberalism.

It will bring together the humanities, social sciences, and STS to address issues of crucial contemporary importance.

Program

Day 1

Doors open 9:45
Introduction 10:00
Session 1: 10:15 – 13:00 (4x 25 minutes + discussion)
Session 2: 14:30 – 17:00 (4x 25 minutes + discussion)

Day 2

Session 3: 10:00 12:45 (4x 25 minutes + discussion)
Roundtable: 14:30 17:00

Day 1 morning: Practices, collectives, mediations

Michele Elam (Stanford) : Slow AI: Keeping Time in the Time of AI

Donato Ricci & Gabriel Alcaras (médialab Sciences Po), Disqualifying Actions: Working with Artificial Intelligence within Professional Norms

Bilel Benbouzid (Eiffel) : Generative AI and the Student Role: An Ethnomethodological Analysis of Accountability Regimes

Johan Fredrikzon (KTH Sweden), Human as Medium: Caring for Machines in the Age of AI

Day 1 afternoon: Pasts, futures, processes

Xiaochang Li (Stanford) : Historicizing AI Norms from the Body to the Black Box

Fanny Georges (Sorbonne Nouvelle, IRMECCEN-DICEN) : The normative turn of Algorithmic Identity: Sociotechnological myths and the Calculated Self

Noel Fitzpatrick (TU Dublin) : Idioms, language norms and information

Warren Sack (University California Santa Cruz) Signs Taken for Wonders: Artificial Intelligence Demos Between the Real and the Imaginary

Day 2 morning: Norms, spaces, risks

David Bates (UC Berkeley), Between Facts and Norms in the Age of AI: From Instrumental Reason to the Habermas Machine

Dan Zimmer (Stanford) : Meat Humans, Mind Children, and the Norms of AI Supersession

Armen Khatchatourov (Eiffel-DICEN) A Heuristic Approach to Post-neolibral AI Normativity: from optimization to rewardization

Antoine Garapon (judge emeritus) & Jean Lassègue (CNRS/EHESS), The politics of platforms: sovereignty grounded in space versus sovereignty grounded in code

Day 2 afternoon: Roundtable on Beliefs, Platforms, Governance

Olivier Alexandre (GRD-CIS – CNRS)

Maryse Carmes (DICEN – CNAM)

Simon Dawes (UVSQ- Saclay)

Bernard Reber (CEVIPOF – Sciences Po)

Frantz Rowe (IUF – Nantes University)

Practical informations

Date: May 11 & 12, 2026

Venue: CNAM, Amphi Jean Baptiste Say, 292 rue St-Martin, Paris

Language: English

Supported by

France-Stanford Global Studies
Le CNAM
GP DIGIS, Graduate Program “Digital Studies and Innovation for Smart Cities”, University Gustave Eiffel
Centre Internet et Société : GDR-CIS, CNRS
Revue Etudes Digitales