Laurence Devillers (born 8 October 1962 in Châtillon-sur-Seine, France) is a professor and researcher in artificial intelligence, ethics, and computer science applied to the social sciences, working at Paris-Sorbonne University since 2011.[4,1,3] She works at the Computer science laboratory for mechanics and engineering sciences (LIMSI) at the Scientific Research National Center, where she heads the team 'Affective and social dimension in spoken interaction'.[4,1,3] Devillers has taken part in several national and European projects focused on human-robot social and affective interactions.[6] She also leads a cluster of robot-human co-evolution at the Institute of Digital Society and 'Robotic interactive' at Paris-Saclay, and is associated with Alexander Waibel.[5]
Biography
Laurence Devillers is a professor at the Université Paris-Sorbonne and a researcher at the Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire des Sciences du Numérique (LISN) of the CNRS and Université Paris-Saclay, where she leads the research team Affective and Social Dimensions in Spoken Interactions.[4,3] Her research areas focus mainly on human-machine interaction, emotion detection, spoken dialogue, and affective and interactive robotics.[6]
Career
In November 1992, she defended a Doctor of Science thesis in Computer Science on "Recognition of continuous speech with a hybrid neuronal and Markovian system". Holding a PhD from Paris-Sud University (Paris XI), she studies affective and social dimensions in man-robot spoken interactions. Associated with Paris-Sud University, this laboratory researches two major themes: mechanical and energetic, and human-machine communication. She has contributed to several national (ANR Tecsan Armen, FUI Romeo, BPI Romeo2) and European or international (Rex Humaine, Chist-era Joker) projects dedicated to affective and social human-robot interactions.[9,15,16]
She participated in the board of IDEX Paris-Saclay LIDEX ISN, Institut de la Société Numérique (Université Paris-Saclay), where she led the cluster on human-machine co-evolution within the framework of the Institut de la société numérique. Since 2017, she has been a project manager at the DATAIA multidisciplinary convergence institute of Paris-Saclay (artificial intelligence and data science), where she leads a project on the ethics of social robotics titled "Bad nudge Bad robot" alongside researchers in behavioral economics and legal experts.[19,20] A member of CERNA (Commission of the Ethics of Research in Digital Science and Technology / Commission de réflexion sur l’éthique de la recherche en sciences et technologies du numérique) of the Allistene Alliance, she co-authored the report on the ethics of the researcher in robotics and led the report on ethics in machine learning.[9,17,18] She participated in deploying the national platform TransAlgo (Transparency and Explanation of Algorithms / Transparence et explicabilité des algorithmes) in 2017, and has also been a founding member of HUB IA (a private-public ecosystem) on applied ethics since 2017. In 2017–2018, she was a member of ISCA and served as an ISCA Distinguished Lecturer.[11] An IEEE member involved in "the IEEE Global Initiative for Ethical Considerations in the Design of Autonomous Systems" since 2016, she has served since 2018 as chairman of working group P7008: Standard for Ethically Driven Nudging for Robotic, Intelligent and Autonomous Systems.[7]
Devillers has published more than 150 articles in international and national peer-reviewed journals and chapters in collective works, and has authored numerous books on artificial intelligence.[8,10] Her books include "Robots and Humans" ("Des robots et des hommes : Mythes, fantasmes et réalité") (ISBN 978-2-259-25227-0), "Emotional robots" ("Les robots émotionnels"), and "Orlanoïde: Hybrid robot with artificial and collective intelligence" (Orlanoïde : Robot hybride avec intelligence artificielle et collective). Devillers was made a Knight of the Legion of Honour in 2020, and the medal was presented by mathematician Cédric Villani on 12 April 2022 at the Collège des Bernardins in Paris.[12]
Theater
She is the co-author of the play Qui a hacké Garoutzia? with Serge Abiteboul and Gilles Dowek, which premiered at the Avignon "Off" festival in July 2023 under the direction of Lisa Bretzner.[25]
Publications
Laurence Devillers's academic works include her 1992 PhD thesis in sciences specializing in computer science, "Continuous Speech Recognition with a Neural and Markovian Hybrid System" (Orsay, November 1992), and her 2006 accreditation thesis (Habilitation à diriger des recherches) in computer science from University Paris XI, "Emotions in Human-Machine Interactions: perception, detection and generation" (Orsay, December 2006). She has also published more than 150 articles in international and national peer-reviewed journals and chapters in collective works. Additionally, she published the 288-page book "AI, angel or demon? The new world of the invisible" with Les éditions du Cerf in 2025.
Honors and Decorations
On December 31, 2019, Laurence Devillers was appointed to the rank of Knight in the National Order of the Legion of Honour, and was subsequently invested as a Knight of the Order by mathematician Cédric Villani on April 12, 2022, at the Collège des Bernardins in Paris.[27]
