Artificial Intelligence and the Transformation of Our Businesses

This week, FIRSH was delighted to take part in a round-table discussion organised by BPCE Payments and Payplug as part of European Sustainable Development Week, focusing on the intersecting issues of artificial intelligence, responsibility and impact.

The discussion brought together Caroline Richard (BPCE Group), Juliette Saincy (Wavestone), 🧩Aurélien Déragne (Soutenable and co-creator of La Fresque du Numérique) and Claire Poirson, founding partner of FIRSH. The discussion was co-moderated by Alexandra Vidal, Office Happiness Manager & CSR at Payplug, and Laurie Le Vourc’h, CSR project manager.

At the heart of the debate lay a fundamental question: when we talk about ‘responsible AI’, what exactly do we mean by ‘responsibility’?

In law, responsibility implies that a natural or legal person is accountable for their actions and bears the consequences. Artificial intelligence is not a legal entity. It is not responsible. It is a tool.

The real question, then, becomes: who is responsible behind the machine?

This question touches on major issues of governance, digital sovereignty, data, intellectual property, environmental impact, the transformation of work and trust in information.

This is precisely the approach developed by FIRSH, which supports companies through the legal transformations linked to artificial intelligence thanks to its cross-disciplinary expertise in law, innovation and technology.

This vision is informed not only by the firm’s operational experience but also by the work of the FIRSH LAB – an integrated research laboratory under the scientific direction of Claire Poirson, which analyses the impact of artificial intelligence on society, organisations and the law – as well as by her role as co-chair of the Legal Tech Committee at ITechLaw.

Beyond technology, AI raises questions about how we wish to organise accountability, trust and innovation within our organisations.

Thank you to Bénédicte B., CSR Manager for the Payments division at BPCE, for the invitation; to the organisers Laurie Le Vourc’h and Alexandra Vidal; and to all the speakers for the quality of the discussions

Claire Poirson