WEBVTT

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<i>36c3 preroll music</i>

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Herald: OK, good. Gauthier Roussilhe
investigates the impact of the digital

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industry on the environment and how we can
actually reduce this industry's footprint,

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ecological footprint. One example is his
own home page. It's visually appealing,

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but it only loads in 450 kilobytes.
Gauthier stage is yours.

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Gauthier Roussilhe: So. So thank you for
inviting me here. Uh, so my talk will look

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at digital industry, but in a broader
scope. We gonna look and analyze what is

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digital industry nowadays, looking at what
is possible to do within transition. Which

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should be our goal altogether. So to just
give me a sense of who I am and from which

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position I am speaking of. Uh, first of
all, I'm a designer. I don't know if there

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is much designers here, but it's quite a
nice practice, I recommend. Which means I

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make digital services. I don't have a
technical expertise on programing or

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coding, but I do understand a little bit.
But most of my work as a designer and also

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as a PhD candidate, I've been looking at
transitions, policies, energy policies,

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environmental policies, legal policies,
when it comes to, and the Anthropocene and

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the paradigm change, the paradigm shift
that we to operate regarding that. So

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within the scope of transition and climate
crisis, environmental crisis, I've been

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looking especially at the digital
industry, its footprints. The way it will

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evolve and if it's going far away from
transition goals or if it is going the

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same direction. I use sometimes the term
low tech, which I don't really like. And I

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will explain later why. But basically
looking at: What, what does, uh,

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digital... sustainable digital industry
looks like? Which is quite a long way. And

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also I have been doing a side research on
economics as it is very interesting to

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look at that when doing this kind of
stuff. At the same time I was also the

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director of online documentary called
Ethics for Design, looking at the

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responsibility of designers. When you put
goods and services massively in people's

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everyday life, what is your
responsibility? So today my position as a

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speaker will be mostly looking at at least
making a transition politics arguments

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linked to a social argument. But I don't
only... I will not focus on technical

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arguments per se. I will focus on
techniques and technologies through the

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scope of transition. So please remember
that I am not that much of a technician.

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So first we need to set up the framework.
I will not give you a lecture on the state

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of the planet right now. I don't think you
need me to go through that. And I think

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there is a far better people to talk about
that. Anyway, I prefer to talk about

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transition. So what is it? What are the
targets? There is a first target. We all

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know it. That 2° target. Paris agreement,
which means we need to stabilize carbon

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concentration in the atmosphere to 480 ppm
(particles per million). To stabilize

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that, to stay under 2° average on Earth,
we need energy transition. We need to

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apply an energy transition. And sometimes
we reduce it to just shifting our energy

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mix to less carbon intensive energy mix.
When actually the first step is firstly to

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reduce energy consumption, then you can
make it less carbon intensive. But if you

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don't know, if you don't learn how to
reduce energy consumption, there not that

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much to do. So I'm gonna go through that
first. And first, because I think we've

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been talking about carbon quite a lot. Uh,
just before. And also this morning with

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Chris Adams. But I realize that not that
much people understand why we picked

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carbon between the halls of greenhouse
gases that are on earth. Why do we set up

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a target on carbon? Uh, carbon has two
specificities: time lag, residence time.

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First thing to know about carbon is on
average, a particle of carbon that just

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being emitted from your car will on
average take 20 years to reach its maximum

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heating effect on the atmosphere. So when
we are doing transition now or engaging

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for transient policies, we are doing it to
have a result and effect 20 years ahead.

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So when we are doing stuff now, we are
doing it for 2040 on average. So which

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means also that the transition. I mean,
the emission for the next 20 years are

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not... we have pretty good estimates.
Secondly, carbon has the highest residence

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time from all the greenhouse gases, one of
the highest at least. It will take 20, uh,

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10000 years for all the carbon that we
emitted so far to go through the

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atmosphere. We add carbon. It doesn't go
through the atmosphere happily. And going

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into the outer space. We add carbon. And
the carbon that we emit today, right now,

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it will stay at least for 1000 years. And
some of it will go through the carbon

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cycle and will stabilize. But we are
adding more carbon in the atmosphere and

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carbon has the specific nature of staying
a very long time in the atmosphere. That's

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why our targets are in looking at carbon,
because it has the maximum heating effect

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regarding its residence time in the
atmosphere. So if we look at France,

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because you have to remember that in this
talk I'm speaking from the perspective of

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a French designer and most of the work
I've been using as a result, I've been

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using or I've made is from the French
perspective and the French research. So on

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average on France, we emit 12 tons of
carbon equivalent per person per year. In

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Germany I don't know. I think you are
roughly around the same number. What's

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interesting here is that digital industry
in this total is almost 1 ton and 200

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kilograms of carbon equivalence. That's
where we are looking right now. With this

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talk, we are looking only a small portion
in green, in goods and services, but it's

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dynamically linked to all the other
sectors. So when I'm operating transition

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in this sector, I'm also looking: How does
it link to everything around them? And we

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have to know that if we want to reach
Paris agreement, we have to stabilize our

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carbon emission per person per year to 2t.
So in France, we have a lot, we have to

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reduce by 10t of carbon emissions per
person per year. So roughly, roughly the

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same thing goes with Germany. So this is
another calculation with less, just a

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smaller amount because they don't
integrate digital industry as much as a

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precedent one. But basically the road here
is 11 to 2. And what's interesting: It's a

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French study looking at what is my
responsibility as an individual to go to

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the target, and they estimated that with a
realistic individual behavior change.

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Eating less meat, not taking planes, using
less car, biking, cycling more. I can only

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do one quarter of the effort needed. So
when companies are focusing on individual

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behavior change it's bullshit. Because
individual behavior change always goes

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with systemic change, which is three
quarters of the road we have to take. So

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you cannot engage in individual behavior
change. We thought asking or fighting for

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systemic change. So here most of the road
that we have to make is through

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decarbonizing or making less carbon
intensive industry, agriculture,

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transport, public services, energy
production, something I cannot do through

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my own individual behavior, but my own
individual behavior is needed. If I want

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to act on the political scale, on the
systemic scale. So we live in a paradox,

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then that's every individual change is
necessary, but insufficient. But we need

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it. So looking back at digital industry,
we need to frame digital industry in 0.6t

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of carbon left for goods and services.
That's where we need to put new

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imaginaries, uh, new ways of practicing
digital in this target. And we have to

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share it with other goods and services,
clothing and so on. So going quickly

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through the impacts of ICTs right now. In
2019, 3% of the worldwide energy is

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consumed by ICTs, its main primary energy,
fuel, oil, gas, nuclear power,

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hydroelectric power. Everything that we
need to power, uh, transport, boats, cars,

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your phone, data centers. 3% of worldwide
energy is consumed by digital industry.

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Accordingly to that, now, we are almost 4%
of greenhouse gases emitted worldwide are

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coming from digital industry. But they are
only numbers. So we need to see how they

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will evolve. Right now, the growth rate of
these two numbers are quite shocking. So

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basically, the energy consumption of this
industry is doubling every 8 years, I

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think. Yeah, 9% of growth rate. That's the
only industry worldwide, I think, with

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that kind of growth rate. And it goes with
greenhouse gases emission 8%. So which

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give us perspective that digital industry
in 2025 will be 5% of all of the worldwide

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energy consumption and 7.5% of greenhouse
emissions. The fact is greenhouse

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emissions are growing faster than energy
consumption is because the increase of

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energy demand coming from digital industry
cannot be absorbed by renewables. You need

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coal power plants, or carbonated energy to
go with this fast growth rate of digital

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industry. So if I look closer at energy,
you can see that right now on the global

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average, 45% to 50% of all energy is used
to manufacture. And the rest of energy is

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for making things work, when you are using
them. But it's a global average. And when

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we are looking at that... So in our
calculation methodology, we have 3 places

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we are looking at: Consumer equipment,
networks, data centers. So we are looking

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at the energy consumption of these three
places, both to manufacture them and to

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use them. But it's a global average. So if
I look at a specific consumer equipment

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like a smartphone, it will look like that.
So mainly when you are buying a

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smartphone, 90% of all energy has already
been used. And if you charge it every day

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for three years, it will be the 10% left.
So when you are using a phone, changing a

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phone, you actually trashing 90% of
energy. And then there is water, minerals

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and so on. But I don't have time to enter
in this topic. So today the main impact of

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digital industry is manufacturing and
producing electricity to make all the

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infrastructure work. So when we think of
web design or designing digital services.

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It's little compared to these impacts. But
we need to think of services that enable

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to reduce this impact. That's how we link
it together. And this infrastructure has

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been used mainly for videos. So Chris
Adams, uh, showed this graph today. I was

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part of the study that look at the impact
of online video on Internet. So mainly 20%

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of all data moving in the world is not
video. 80% is video. So as Chris shows

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this morning, most of it is Netflix, uh,
pornography, tubes and others. Uh, the

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fact is Netflix with 150 million users
worldwide is basically representing 15% of

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the global Internet traffic. And they've
been doing that for... And they launched

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the streaming services ten years ago, I
guess. So that's quite a big growth rate.

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But this graphic, I want to challenge it
because I was part of this study. So I

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also know its limits. This doesn't show
pollution or energy consumption. It just

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shows you data moving. And 1 gigabyte of
Netflix data, video data, has way less

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energy consumption than once you get bytes
of banking data, especially if it's

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running on old data centers that haven't
been be updated for 30 years. Netflix has

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incredible infrastructure. So moving 1 GB
for Netflix is less energy. So it doesn't

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represent energy consumption. It's just
data moving. So how do we deal with that

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now? We have a good... We know the
transient framework in which we are

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operating. We know the impacts. How do we
do differently knowing that? First we need

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to challenge the discourse that have been
put up when we speak of Internet and

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digital infrastructure. When digital
infrastructure arrived in civil society,

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there was two discourses. First that it
was dematerialized. Secondly, that it will

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create a global village. Well, I think now
we can know, we have enough data to say

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that both of these discourses were myth or
lies. If anything, digital industry is

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hyper-materialized. It requires an
astonishing amount of minerals, resources,

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water, energy, infrastructures that never
been seen before for such a small. I mean,

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such a young infrastructure. So when you
are dematerialized, you don't account for

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resources. You don't account for energy,
because there is no impact, at least in

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public discourse. When you think of a
global village, it's quite an aggressive

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thing when you say global village. It
means basically your erase culture,

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geography and history of places in which
you are implementing the infrastructure.

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So I think we need to change this both,
these discourses. If we want to look at

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what digital industry can be in a system,
a paradigm of sustainability. And we have

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to understand that because of these two
things that have been said about digital

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industry by default, at least in my
perspective, most of the usage of the uses

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were created with the current digital
industry. By default energy intensive or

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high energy based, by default. I can show
you quite easily with Netflix. So Netflix,

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one of the biggest data movers on the
Internet. But actually, when you think of

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it being able to broadcast to 150 million
users worldwide, high quality videos, is

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already based on the fact that they don't
pay that much energy. And secondly, to be

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able to incite people to watch more, to
create an interaction of auto play so

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people can see more and more videos, can
watch more and more videos. It's because

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you don't account for energy. It's not a
cost. It's not really something that

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matters. But also to look at Netflix
precisely: Netflix also created one of the

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very efficient network broadcast its
videos. So here to be quite precise, when

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you are watching a Netflix episode, it
will never go through the Internet because

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in each data centers of Internet service
providers, there is this little red box,

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this little servers from Netflix that are
actually caching all the catalog every

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morning. So when you are clicking on play
on Netflix, it's just streaming you a

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video from your ISP data center. So it
will never go through the rest of the

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Internet. So they actually don't, they
optimize a lot the streaming services. But

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the fact is, even if it's a very energy
efficient, they are growing so much that a

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gain of energy are being completely
overwhelmed by the growth rate that they

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are fostering through their practice. And
yet Netflix account for if it was going

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through the Internet for real, it will
account for 37% of all the peak internet

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traffic. So if we look at the way we think
of designing websites, applications, so

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on. Uh, normally we start with money.
Someone is giving you money and goals,

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targets that, in design we say KPI. So key
performance indicators. And they will tell

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you, I want that much audience. I want
that much engagements. I want that much

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people buying my stuff. Do a service. A
web service. Uh, website application so

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you can reach my targets. So from my
perspective, you are giving money for

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people to move data because also data is
getting back to the people paying for it.

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But in this framework, when do we think of
energy? When do we think of resources?

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Because so far we've been very good at
creating efficient equipment and in

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design, in the design practice, energy
never really mattered. In computer

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sciences it's different. We created
fantastic efficient, energy efficient

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equipment. But the fact is, the more
efficient our equipment became, the more

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we consume of it. So there is a constant
rebound effect that it is not giving us

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any possibility to transition in a less
intensive infrastructure. So the fact is

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we never account for energy. We never
account for resources from the design

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side. And I've been trawling quite a few
designers with that, asking them, can you

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make me a website for 2 Watts per hour?
Nobody knows how to do that. No designers,

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no designers can answer this question. And
they might be very senior. I asked senior

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designers or students, junior designers,
nobody could answer this question. Because

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energy never mattered. So from the way I
see it, I'm designing from energy, so I

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start with energy budget because my goal
here is to reduce carbon emissions. To

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reduce carbon emissions I need to reduce
the amount of energy I'm consuming. To

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reduce the amount of energy I'm consuming,
I need to reduce the amount of data I'm

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moving. And from that, I can decide how
much money I'm spending to design a

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specific service. I don't start from
carbon. It is very inefficient and it's

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unfair because for most countries, I mean,
if I give like a carbon threshold... In

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France, we could do amazing website
spending a lot of energy because we don't

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have a very carbon intensive energy mix.
Australia, USA will end up with very

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crappy websites because they will have
maybe three kilobytes to move. So it's

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better to start from energy than from
carbon, because energy is fair, to some

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extent. And it's more efficient to reduce
because it is more important to reduce

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energy than to reduce carbon emissions.
Because if you reduce energy consumption,

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normally you would reduce carbon
emissions. So I did that with my website.

00:24:00.602 --> 00:24:08.167
When I start to realize the also blind
spot in Zen practice, I go for my own

00:24:08.167 --> 00:24:15.462
transformation. So my website is consuming
one kilowatt per hour for 1000 visits.

00:24:15.462 --> 00:24:22.743
It's quite an average website. I mean, no,
it's not average anymore. It's 450

00:24:22.743 --> 00:24:31.426
kilobytes on average. And I will add a new
thing in the next month, I will limit my

00:24:31.426 --> 00:24:38.181
traffic to 5000 visitors a month, because
if you want to constrain energy budgets,

00:24:38.181 --> 00:24:42.880
if you want to apply a real energy budget,
you need to constrain traffic. So you have

00:24:42.880 --> 00:24:48.968
to decide how much visitors you want to
come every month. And once there is there

00:24:48.968 --> 00:24:54.745
be 5000 visitors then. So the other ones
will wait for the next month and it's

00:24:54.745 --> 00:25:00.035
fine. It's not that important to get
information all the time. So if you are

00:25:00.035 --> 00:25:08.063
not up to do all this calculation that I
can explain with with you later. Uh, I

00:25:08.063 --> 00:25:15.540
design a Firefox extension that shows you
the amount of data moving. And so the

00:25:15.540 --> 00:25:21.390
energy consumption and the carbon emission
linked to this data moving on your

00:25:21.390 --> 00:25:28.122
computer from your browser and shows you
what's moving them. What are the different

00:25:28.122 --> 00:25:34.836
ways, where is the data going. And it
gives you some equivalences on charged

00:25:34.836 --> 00:25:40.126
smartphones and kilometer in a car. So I
did that for, uh, for a lobby in France

00:25:40.126 --> 00:25:44.320
called the shift project that also
produced most of... a lot of the studies

00:25:44.320 --> 00:25:51.543
looking for impacts of digital industry.
It's called Carbonalyser. So as I was

00:25:51.543 --> 00:26:01.458
saying to do an energy budget, you need 3
things: You need to describe or to reclaim

00:26:01.458 --> 00:26:06.612
energy infrastructure. Where does your
energy come from? It's very important. You

00:26:06.612 --> 00:26:11.516
need to reclaim the digital
infrastructure, which is: What is hosting,

00:26:11.516 --> 00:26:17.510
what is the network, on which consumer
equipment? So you have to define in which

00:26:17.510 --> 00:26:22.760
territory you're operating. So at that
point, the global village is dead because

00:26:22.760 --> 00:26:27.678
you cannot be global anymore, you need to
precisely know where is your energy coming

00:26:27.678 --> 00:26:32.960
from, which are the impact of the data
center you are using in a specific place

00:26:32.960 --> 00:26:37.970
and you need to decide about traffic. So
now while I'm working sometimes with

00:26:37.970 --> 00:26:44.080
clients, we decide how much traffic they
want to go for. And we put a hard cap on

00:26:44.080 --> 00:26:51.400
that. So a good example of that, I think
you all know it, is the Low Tech Magazine.

00:26:51.400 --> 00:26:56.700
First, they Reclaim Energy. They built a
solar panel, I mean, they installed a

00:26:56.700 --> 00:27:01.282
solar panel on a balcony in Barcelona that
is powering a website. You can see the

00:27:01.282 --> 00:27:06.400
battery in the yellow part on the website.
So first they reclaim energy. Then they

00:27:06.400 --> 00:27:13.986
reclaim digital infrastructure. So they
are doing a self hosting with a Raspberry

00:27:13.986 --> 00:27:22.005
Pi. And they are not looking at traffic so
far, but it will come. That's kind of the

00:27:22.005 --> 00:27:29.120
example I want to show you, because the
territory here is paramount to the design.

00:27:29.120 --> 00:27:35.610
You don't design stuff without knowing why
it actually be. What is the materiality of

00:27:35.610 --> 00:27:39.555
what you are doing? So and you can see
here in the footers, they are also giving

00:27:39.555 --> 00:27:44.200
the weather for the next coming days in
Barcelona, what's our base and where the

00:27:44.200 --> 00:27:50.560
energy is coming from. And because I was
speaking of low tech, I just want to do

00:27:50.560 --> 00:27:56.084
like a quick heads up on when we speak of
high tech or low tech. I'm coming from a

00:27:56.084 --> 00:28:00.951
social science background, especially
anthropology of techniques, philosophy,

00:28:00.951 --> 00:28:06.361
political sciences and so on. So I've
always been shocked by the word tech. What

00:28:06.361 --> 00:28:12.429
does it mean? Is it technology,
techniques? Nobody defines it. So it was

00:28:12.429 --> 00:28:18.880
interesting, to say that when we think of
low tech in our perspective of transition,

00:28:18.880 --> 00:28:23.948
we are speaking of low technology and high
techniques. When when you are speaking of

00:28:23.948 --> 00:28:28.029
high tech from the Silicon Valley
perspective, you are speaking of high

00:28:28.029 --> 00:28:33.155
technology, low techniques, which means
you are relying on blackboxing technology,

00:28:33.155 --> 00:28:37.812
making it the less open to people, which
means you will reduce drastically the

00:28:37.812 --> 00:28:42.449
skills and the knowledge that people can
get from the technology you are deploying.

00:28:42.449 --> 00:28:47.528
So low techniques, low skills. On the
other way, when you think of low tech, we

00:28:47.528 --> 00:28:54.072
are also relying on technology. You cannot
do digital without thinking of high

00:28:54.072 --> 00:29:00.746
technology Infrastructure. But you are
relying less on that. And you are relying

00:29:00.746 --> 00:29:07.732
on techniques. How do you spread
knowledge? How do you share skills? How do

00:29:07.732 --> 00:29:13.957
you learn to maintain stuff is important.
And I think you've been doing that for

00:29:13.957 --> 00:29:19.672
quite a while here. Not telling you
something new. But what's changing here is

00:29:19.672 --> 00:29:25.688
a perspective of drastically changing
living conditions on earth. And also the

00:29:25.688 --> 00:29:30.461
material condition of production are
drastically changing. The way we've been

00:29:30.461 --> 00:29:37.066
extracting minerals, producing energy,
using water for mining exploitation will

00:29:37.066 --> 00:29:46.513
change forever and nothing will be the
same anymore on that level. And this is

00:29:46.513 --> 00:29:53.505
more of my anthropology side speaking
here, but I've seen much more interesting

00:29:53.505 --> 00:29:58.179
stuff of empowerment, of what is
technology, what is digital infrastructure

00:29:58.179 --> 00:30:03.589
in other places in the world, especially
el paquete semanal in Cuba, which is

00:30:03.589 --> 00:30:10.442
basically people coming to office in Cuba
with a hard drive. They get one terabyte

00:30:10.442 --> 00:30:15.989
of TV shows, film, whatever, tutorials,
books, and they go back and they pay a

00:30:15.989 --> 00:30:20.254
little fee for that. It's basically a
content distribution network, except that

00:30:20.254 --> 00:30:24.976
you don't need network, you just need your
feet. Daknet in north India is quite

00:30:24.976 --> 00:30:30.560
interesting, too. They don't have access
to cellular or mobile networks as we can

00:30:30.560 --> 00:30:37.228
have here. So they deal with the problem
quite interestingly. So sometimes there is

00:30:37.228 --> 00:30:41.498
this guy on a motorcycle with a little
antenna and sever in the back of the

00:30:41.498 --> 00:30:46.425
motorcycle and is basically going into
every village in a specific place. He

00:30:46.425 --> 00:30:51.320
broadcasts a signal. He creates a hotspot.
Everybody is sending the stuff and he goes

00:30:51.320 --> 00:30:56.244
from village to village and go back to the
city. He plugs on the main network and

00:30:56.244 --> 00:31:03.414
everything is sent. It's also do that with
bus that are picking up kids going to the

00:31:03.414 --> 00:31:11.082
school. Also in Brooklyn: Every network
tells a story. Great initiative, people

00:31:11.082 --> 00:31:17.149
getting to design their own networks and
to understand the materiality of networks

00:31:17.149 --> 00:31:23.240
or the Association of French Internet
Provider in France. Fantastic initiative,

00:31:23.240 --> 00:31:28.348
too. So I will kind of conclude on that.
This is my own framework to think of

00:31:28.348 --> 00:31:34.006
digital industry now in the context of
transition. So we gonna start from the

00:31:34.006 --> 00:31:40.160
inner circle: materialisation. That is the
issue with digital industry. That's the

00:31:40.160 --> 00:31:44.892
only infrastructure that has been to my
knowledge that have been publicized and

00:31:44.892 --> 00:31:50.278
thus a discourse of being dematerialized.
You cannot do that with roads, with roads

00:31:50.278 --> 00:31:55.617
network or any other infrastructure,
that's unique to digital infrastructure.

00:31:55.617 --> 00:32:00.700
So the first step is always to materialize
it. That's why we need the plugin. So you

00:32:00.700 --> 00:32:05.412
can see that there is impacts, but this
impacts you need to frame it in two

00:32:05.412 --> 00:32:10.382
different ways. You need to frame the
impacts on the territory in which your

00:32:10.382 --> 00:32:15.840
energy and your infrastructure is hosted.
And also the impacts at the scale of the

00:32:15.840 --> 00:32:23.859
earth. Watching porn is emitting carbon.
So you have a global impact with very

00:32:23.859 --> 00:32:31.381
intimate use of the Internet. Then you
need to defend your territory. Very

00:32:31.381 --> 00:32:36.486
interesting, because since we've be living
in the myth of the global village, we

00:32:36.486 --> 00:32:42.821
never thought on how the territory can
actually influence the way we are

00:32:42.821 --> 00:32:50.275
designing web services or websites. So we
need to start from the territory, as low

00:32:50.275 --> 00:32:55.480
tech magazine did, accepting the
constraint of Barcelona and playing with

00:32:55.480 --> 00:33:02.046
it. And then you need to understand that
we also are working on a planetary scale,

00:33:02.046 --> 00:33:07.898
what I call terrestrialisation which is
like kind of a mouthful. But that's what

00:33:07.898 --> 00:33:13.105
it is. We need to understand the effect of
digital industry on a global scale, on a

00:33:13.105 --> 00:33:18.222
planetary scale. And the fact that the
living condition on earth are quickly

00:33:18.222 --> 00:33:24.345
changing, are impacting territories, which
will also impact the way we think of

00:33:24.345 --> 00:33:30.400
services. So starting from the territory
is a good place to start because that's

00:33:30.400 --> 00:33:35.400
where there is a materiality of digital
industry. The ones that have been hidden

00:33:35.400 --> 00:33:39.933
so far, or we don't want you to look at.
And I wanted to finish with this little

00:33:39.933 --> 00:33:47.911
picture, because right now in France, we
are striking because of the reform of the

00:33:47.911 --> 00:33:54.464
pension system. And there was something
quite interesting in the way the strike

00:33:54.464 --> 00:34:00.053
evolved in the last days, because in
between... there is many people striking

00:34:00.053 --> 00:34:04.070
in France right now, lawyers,
firefighters. So the Paris Opera Ballet,

00:34:04.070 --> 00:34:10.320
because they want to change the pension
system. So we have moments now in Paris

00:34:10.320 --> 00:34:16.370
where the ballerinas are performing for
the strikers. And it creates something

00:34:16.370 --> 00:34:21.713
very interesting because it goes beyond
act of resistance. It creates beauty and

00:34:21.713 --> 00:34:26.825
opportunities in the way we think of
changing the system. It goes beyond

00:34:26.825 --> 00:34:31.187
resistance. It creates imaginaries. And
that's the most important thing that we

00:34:31.187 --> 00:34:37.044
need to do right now for the digital
industry. Sustain and create imaginaries.

00:34:37.044 --> 00:34:43.670
Thank you.

00:34:43.670 --> 00:34:48.508
Herald: Gauthier, Merci beaucoup. We have
five minutes time for a couple of

00:34:48.508 --> 00:34:57.584
questions. Please line up at the
microphones. And is there a question

00:34:57.584 --> 00:35:02.770
already from the Internet? No question
from the Internet. Please to the

00:35:02.770 --> 00:35:11.840
microphones. Number three, please.
Q: Okay. I'm still formulating it, but

00:35:11.840 --> 00:35:18.480
I'll try. I've been looking a lot about
how the new push in the digital industries

00:35:19.120 --> 00:35:23.920
is framed around the fourth industrial
revolution, which is pushing us more

00:35:23.920 --> 00:35:31.520
towards Internet of Things, always on, the
artificial intelligence ideas the industry

00:35:31.520 --> 00:35:38.400
is coming up with. And I'm wondering if
there is a way to push us in the opposite

00:35:38.400 --> 00:35:44.320
direction, to go away from personal
devices and more towards library modes of

00:35:44.320 --> 00:35:52.000
technology? So like trying to create
places like the hack labs, the hack spaces

00:35:52.960 --> 00:35:58.480
where we go to use things instead of
people constantly having their devices on,

00:35:59.040 --> 00:36:05.200
feeding the data surveillance capitalism
and so going against the grain of pushing

00:36:05.200 --> 00:36:10.560
against this expansionism. And if you have
looked at that in that way?

00:36:10.560 --> 00:36:15.600
Gauthier: Well, I can give you like a
prime experience from the French landscape

00:36:15.600 --> 00:36:22.400
because I think I'm only legitimate to
talk about that. One thing that will be

00:36:23.280 --> 00:36:30.320
quite dramatic for the way digital
industry is going to evolve is in my own

00:36:30.320 --> 00:36:35.440
perspective, the deployment of 5G because
for 5G then you get autonomous cars, IoT,

00:36:35.440 --> 00:36:41.840
4K videos streaming in a tube. It is not
going in a good direction. The

00:36:41.840 --> 00:36:47.520
massification of [unintelligible] is not a
solution. And I was recently talking I

00:36:47.520 --> 00:36:52.560
mean, giving a talk in the biggest, French
telecom company called Orange. And there

00:36:52.560 --> 00:36:57.280
is actually like, an inner revolt inside
the company because engineers don't want

00:36:57.280 --> 00:37:02.320
to deploy 5G because it's useless. We
don't need that. And that's right now,

00:37:02.320 --> 00:37:05.520
that's kind of the shift that we are
observing in France. We think there is a

00:37:05.520 --> 00:37:10.560
momentum of people. I mean, also, some
laws are getting passed in the parliament

00:37:10.560 --> 00:37:17.280
regarding that. But companies in France, I
understood that they cannot do... they

00:37:18.560 --> 00:37:23.360
will be accountable for environmental
impact of digital industries. Uh, several

00:37:23.360 --> 00:37:30.160
cities are contacting me to influence or
to give them advice on the digital

00:37:30.160 --> 00:37:35.840
strategy, going far away from the 4th
Industrial Revolution, the Rifkin thing.

00:37:36.640 --> 00:37:42.640
So I think right now it is about
resistance and trying to stop the coming

00:37:42.640 --> 00:37:48.640
flow of whatever techno solution is
incoming from the Silicon Valley to

00:37:48.640 --> 00:37:53.600
actually stop at a specific moment. The
next big infrastructure, which would be

00:37:53.600 --> 00:38:01.200
5G. Fighting against 5G in my regard is
what creates great space to rethink what

00:38:01.200 --> 00:38:05.040
we want from the digital industry and what
digital use we want to foster.

00:38:05.040 --> 00:38:07.070
<i>scattered applause</i>

00:38:07.070 --> 00:38:12.000
Herald: Okay. We got time for one more
question. Microphone number two, please.

00:38:12.000 --> 00:38:17.840
Q: Hello there. I found your model very,
very interesting of terrestrialization,

00:38:17.840 --> 00:38:23.520
territorialization, materialization. I'm
looking for like worked examples of what

00:38:23.520 --> 00:38:26.880
design decisions you would make
differently as a result for that. And I

00:38:26.880 --> 00:38:31.120
didn't quite get that from the talk. Where
would I look to find a really concrete

00:38:31.120 --> 00:38:34.400
example of this?
Russilhe: Yeah. So there is free projects

00:38:34.400 --> 00:38:42.000
going on now. The first one. Well, I got a
European fund actually, to do a specific

00:38:42.000 --> 00:38:46.000
project that I'm very keen on because I
don't come from a big city. I come from a

00:38:46.000 --> 00:38:50.640
rural place in France. And I always kept
this perspective. What thinking from the

00:38:50.640 --> 00:38:57.440
territory, thinking from the rural aspect
of life. Well, what digital use are also

00:38:57.440 --> 00:39:05.520
less excessive. So I receive funding to
make low energy template to make cities

00:39:05.520 --> 00:39:13.200
websites. And so I want to spread this
open source template. So all the little

00:39:13.200 --> 00:39:19.040
village cities or little cities of France
can get the best of what we can do

00:39:19.040 --> 00:39:25.040
regarding low energy web design and spread
it through the territory of France. That's

00:39:25.040 --> 00:39:29.440
what we are doing right now. It will be
documented in, I mean, the first version

00:39:29.440 --> 00:39:35.680
will pushed in March. Secondly, we are
also doing another website for the low

00:39:35.680 --> 00:39:41.200
tech lab in brittany. What we're doing
here is documenting how to think

00:39:41.200 --> 00:39:47.120
differently of maps, digital maps
especially. Because Google Map is not

00:39:47.120 --> 00:39:51.200
something I want to foster, especially in
terms of energy impacts, because even if

00:39:51.200 --> 00:39:56.000
it's very efficient, there's so much
growth regarding its use that we need to

00:39:56.000 --> 00:40:01.680
think differently. And when you think of
digital maps, there is four. I look at it

00:40:01.680 --> 00:40:07.200
from a design perspective. So I see for
uses. Localisation: Where I am or where is

00:40:07.200 --> 00:40:13.520
the point I'm looking for. Orientation.
How those are related? Modelization of the

00:40:13.520 --> 00:40:19.520
map. Or, uh, what is the fourth one?
Giving a route. When you are using Google

00:40:19.520 --> 00:40:26.160
map, the photos that you are given at the
same time. But because it was thought on a

00:40:26.160 --> 00:40:32.880
high energy perspective, but you don't
need to display the map if you don't know

00:40:32.880 --> 00:40:37.760
where you want to go. So it's not
necessary to show the map if you haven't

00:40:38.960 --> 00:40:44.240
decided where you're going next. So we are
just, most of the use I've been developing

00:40:44.240 --> 00:40:48.720
on the digital industry so far, we are
trying to rethink it very differently with

00:40:48.720 --> 00:40:54.080
the lowest energy possible. And it means
that we need to break down some of the

00:40:54.080 --> 00:41:00.080
things that have been made. It will be
documented in February. So I have things

00:41:00.080 --> 00:41:04.851
to show, but not yet.
Herald: Encore en fois, merci beaucop.

00:41:04.851 --> 00:41:06.964
Russilhe: Thank you.
Herald: Gauthier

00:41:06.964 --> 00:41:10.661
<i>applause</i>

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00:41:10.661 --> 00:41:15.540
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00:41:15.540 --> 00:41:38.000
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