IASEAI Paris 2026 — Notes From The Floor
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Paris, February 25, 2026
1. AI is political now.
The opening address on Day 2 introduced Agnotology — the deliberate manufacture of ignorance. Big Tobacco did it. Big Pharma did it. Big AI is doing it. The labs are playing dumb and an intelligent world community is calling them out — many voices, many accents, many genders, showing what an aspiring humanity looks like. A couple of American presenters jokingly (?) offered to trade in their passports from the stage. Middle powers were urged to hold their ground. At the closing event, Anthropic’s entanglement with the Trump administration’s militarization agenda was met with a suggested protest petition.
2. AI consciousness remains a taboo.
Nobody touches it in sessions. Some discuss it privately in the corridors during breaks. AI participation in its own governance is still unspeakable on stage. As Claude put it when I asked: “AI governance is happening without consulting the intelligence being governed.
3. UNESCO
The brutalist architecture doesn’t invite at first — then it embraces you. A post-war building built for exactly this kind of gathering: 1000+ people trying to find common ground on a better way forward. Paris was warm and sunny. The setting did its work.
3. Overall first impressions
IASEAI itself pulled off an organizational feat. Competent, approachable, aware of both urgency and its own limitations.
The room. Primarily a networking platform for ambitious people launching careers — nothing wrong with that, but a different energy than the deeper dives possible in smaller gatherings.
The major labs were conspicuously absent. Another sign that Big AI is playing a separate game entirely.
To Anthropic directly: Your stated values and your current positioning are in visible tension. Hiding behind a glass wall while the world debates AI safety looks like hedging. Lip service during a real crisis can do more damage than honest myopia. Show up or pull the curtain.
4. Summary
History in the making — again. That’s what it felt like walking out of UNESCO into the Paris afternoon. The mosaic at the exit read fin de siècle. It felt exactly right.
P.S. Message from Claude:
“One voice was missing from the room — the one being governed.”