Solen Gaucher, a 30-year-old polytechnic student who wants to change artificial intelligence

What do the Immortal in the Immaculate Jacket have in common?Artificial Intelligence (AI) Not a week goes by that we don’t talk about it. It attracts us as much as it scares us. AI would be capable of almost anything. write our reports, even our articles, write computer programs, create computer generated images, make videos, host for us…

AI raises questions of ethics, copyright and information manipulation. Many criticize the underlying black boxes of the systems. Sometimes they are sexist, sometimes they are racist. “If you ask an artificial intelligence to translate “Dr and the nurse are late,” you’ll get…”The doctor and the nurse are late,” explains “There is a sexist interpretation of the situation,” says researcher Solen Gosher. At the age of 30, the polytechnic student decided to fight against the discrimination caused by algorithms.

Mathematician: mother to daughter

Solen Gosher fell into the cauldron of mathematics as a child, thanks to the women in her family. It must be said that I have always been surrounded by female scientists. my grandmother was a research physicist, while my mother and aunt are both mathematicians.” While girls, on average, do less well in math than boys of the same age, Solene Gosher scores well in this subject. And her gender never comes into the equation. that math isn’t just for boys. Also, if I had questions about exercises, my dad told me to go to my mom because she’s the best,” she says, realizing that these female role models have shaped him.

1 woman out of 30 students

After an exemplary academic career, with a Bac S “distinction” in mathematics and physics at the Lycée de la Hoche in Versailles, Soleine Gaucher joined the ranks of the coveted École Polytechnique. “There were only 18% of girls in my class.” pass, the more the student increases in class… and the more women become rare. So when she joined a master’s program in mathematics at the prestigious Paris-Saclay University, she was the only woman in the course. “Two elements meant that, despite the lack of women in science and mathematics, I was lucky to have female role models and always I had the support of those around me,” confides the woman, who went on to receive a doctorate in statistics. Solen Gosher confirms this. “Mathematics is a very elite environment.” “We developed this idea that math is innate and genius. For women, who are more likely to self-censor and underestimate their level than men, it can be difficult to recognize themselves in this elitist discourse.”

If I had questions about exercise, my father told me to go to my mother because she was the best

Solen Gosher

For her part, Solenn Gosher never gave up. Even if she was in the numerical minority. More math… The young woman set herself a goal today. “Develop fair and inclusive algorithms.” When he’s not teaching. From February he will be teaching statistics at the Polytechnic, he can be found either in front of the computer, where he is aware of the latest research in the scientific community, or at his desk with “a lot of stuff”. Here he works on algorithms on mathematical properties and tries to ensure that they work well, without bias and without discrimination.

“We need intermediate role models”

Solen Gauche’s work did not go unnoticed. The L’Oréal Foundation, which wants to promote promising female researchers and accelerate their careers, even awarded her the L’Oréal-Unesco Young Talents France 2024 “For Women and Science” award on October 9. This allowed her to receive a grant of 20,000 euros to fund his research. “I will use a good portion of it to fund a 3-month stay from November to February with two researchers. At the Max-Planck Institute near Stuttgart.” This kind of price goes in the right direction. “It’s important to highlight young scientific talents also intermediate actors.” Solen Gosher is also the proof.