These are, in a way, the core of the development of artificial intelligence: supercomputers. France currently hosts three on its territory. A fourth device, as a result of European cooperation, is scheduled to be installed next year at CEA's massive computing centre, in Essonne. She will join supercomputers named Adastra, Jean Zay and Jules Verne.
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But this fourth super-powerful computer, which will be able to calculate 1 exaflop per second, that is, performing a billion billion calculations per second, has one difference: it will bear the name of researcher Alice Reacock. A little-known name, albeit a pioneer: She initially specialized in computing, co-designing the first minicomputers designed for the general public, before working in the 1980s on artificial intelligence.
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“She had this vision of believing in the democratization of computing, and she threw herself completely into the possibilities of artificial intelligence“Explains Marion Carré, an artificial intelligence specialist and author of her biography, Who Wanted to Erase Alice Rycock, published this year (edited by Fayard).”Since the 1990s, I have predicted that we will all end up using AI without knowing it, and I took into account use cases such as generating text or images, things we know well today“.
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“It is important that it is highlighted.”
The problem is that the life and work of Alice Rycock, who died in 2021, was given little spotlight by the scientific community…so much so that her Wikipedia page almost disappeared under the pretext that she was not known enough. …Lending your name to a solid set of technology is a step forward for Marion Carré: “It doesn't fit the standards and imagination we might have about computer geniuses, like Steve Jobs for example. That's why it's so important to highlight her, and people like her, so that when we think about IT, we don't just think about jobs reserved for men with the great men who did the illustrations, but also careers that are perfectly adapted to women, with these pioneers“.
Moreover, the question of monitoring the private data that the use of artificial intelligence can generate was also a question that Alice Rycock asked herself: she is also one of
