Investigation
Article reserved for subscribers
The agents of the National Institute for Research in Digital Science and Technology complain of abusive management and “hostile actions” of their management. A management that affects their work and scares away the French “stars” of artificial intelligence.
ChatGPT, this artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chat software has put AI back in the center of discussions. An area in which France has already earned its stripes and has eminent representatives, like Yann LeCun, the head of AI at Facebook. The perfect opportunity for French science to shine. Except that in recent years, nothing has been going well within the flagship of public research in computer science, the National Institute for Research in Digital Science and Technology (Inria). This tricolor flagship in the field, a research organization bringing together around 4,000 researchers spread over ten sites across the territory, is to IT what Inserm is to health. But “our institute is abused by its management and suffers from dysfunctions totally unprecedented in their scope and multiplicity”, castigates an internal petition launched in January by the National Union of Scientific Researchers (SNCS-FSU) and supported by the National Union of Scientific Research Workers (SNTRS-CGT). Unions refer to their organization as a “monument in danger”. The petition has rec
