AI in France: History, lessons learnt, state of the art and future

Abstract

This chapter begins by a short history of AI in France since the early 1970s. It gives some examples of industrial applications developed since the 1980s. It also introduces AFIA, the French Association for AI, and describes some activities such as the main conferences and publications. The main French AI research domains and actors such as public and private laboratories are listed and some of their activities are briefly presented. A table of AI-based French software and service companies is reprinted from the AFIA Bulletin. A presentation of the main national research programs is followed by the description of two international AI labs Sony CSL (Paris) and XRCE (Grenoble). Finally some future trends and challenges are discussed. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.