Zeineb GOLLI

Interscience Lab (LR14ES01)

FHSST – University of Tunis

Artificial intelligence guest of honor at the Tunisian temple of the humanities

Thanks to its ability to simulate human intelligence, Artificial Intelligence (AI) now plays a key role in all fields, particularly in scientific and academic research. Many researchers and teachers are interested in it and show great intellectual curiosity in interrogating digital and genetic corpora in their fields of research and reflection, as well as in their teaching methods.

In that respect, an international symposium entitled “Constructing and interrogating digital corpora in the age of Artificial Intelligence” was held on 29 February and 1 March 2024 at the Faculty of Human and Social Sciences of Tunis. The event, co-organized by Professors BASSI and SAMET and the INTERSIGNES Laboratory, allowed the numerous participants to wander through the meanders of digital corpora and their peculiarities, and to explore new qualitative ethical and epistemological practices, thus ensuring an enriching debate and an open and fruitful exchange.

The interesting presentations raised many questions about the usefulness of resorting digital technology in the classroom, the processing of corpora, and the pedagogical and adult education value of language learning. The conference also welcomed participants, researchers and teachers from foreign institutions, which further strengthened the debate on digital and writing skills.

Digital humanities questioned by young people

In addition to the educational objectives of the symposium, the event was conceived as a multidisciplinary meeting that brought together literary scholars, scientists, students, researchers and teachers, who showed a strong interest in the chosen topic. Several exciting and original approaches were discussed, including ecocriticism, semantics and geopoetics. Questioning the connectionist systems of AI, using digitized corpora, introducing automatism at the expense of the human, reflecting on the advent of the electronic age: these were just some of the topics that stimulated the interest of the young students, who were motivated by the contribution of the issues raised.  In fact, the opportunity was taken to get an idea of their “feedback” after attending the symposium.

Mohamed Ali, a second-year sociology student, expressed his attraction in these words: “The experience is good, and I was enthusiastic, the subject is topical, it really kept me on my toes and boosted me to work even harder on similar issues”. And as for the possibility of substituting digital technology in the classroom for the traditional educational method, the student replied: “the traditional method, the eye contact, the human presence and direct contact with the teacher are unequalled”.

As for Chayma, a student at the Faculty of Human and Social Sciences in Tunis, she expressed her great satisfaction with the quality of the presentations and showed her interest in the subject by saying: “Artificial Intelligence is not the exclusive preserve of literature or teaching. Today, many doctors are using “telemedicine”, whether it is effective or not remains to be seen, but as far as I know, the fields of thought are expanding around “everything at a distance” and “everything digitized”. “However,” she adds, “access to computerized resources remains problematic and limited. According to Chayma, not everyone has a good internet connection to access the digital world, even though we plan to use it “mandatorily” in the next five years”.

Enthusiasm and reservations

Anis also appreciated the initiative, insisting on the instructive nature of the symposium, but believing that “digital education” is now taking precedence and competing with traditional teaching methods. In his view, software and platforms are more productive and more in line with the high expectations of users than human beings.  He cited the example of Chat GPT and its effectiveness, highlighting its benefits and warning of its dangers: “We invented Chat GPT, and it is up to us to be aware of the dangers and harmful consequences that can result from unbridled use of this invention”.

The interview ended with Nour, a bachelor’s student, who believes that unfortunately, although dynamic teaching is a modern and innovative solution, it reduces humans to mere robots, addicted to machines and blindly subject to what connected software, and developed techniques impose on them. “We live in a state of perpetual conflict, and this upsets me greatly. We must first make people aware of the disadvantages and impact of social networks, for example. Today, many people spend an enormous amount of time simply scrolling through content on computers and smartphones, “scrolling” systematically and inconceivably. However, she sees its effectiveness insofar as, in her opinion, it allows us to open ourselves up to the world without necessarily moving, to explore the universe… We must nevertheless be grateful for the merits of this digital and telematic progress”.

The symposium was an excellent opportunity to familiarize oneself with digital tools, through the various workshops offered to students and doctoral students on professional writing, computer tools for literary writing and the management of new digital methods. It was also an opportunity for fruitful exchanges and impressive debates.