Laurence Devillers

Laurence Devillers is a French computer scientist whose research on emotion detection in the voice, spoken dialogue and social robots led her to the ethics of AI. After a 1992 thesis on continuous speech recognition with a hybrid neural and Markov system, she built human-machine dialogue systems in Orsay and began modelling emotions in the voice in 2000. In 2017 she chaired the IEEE P7008 working group on ethically driven nudging, and on France's national digital ethics committee she co-reported opinions on chatbots and generative AI. Her books include Des robots et des hommes (2017) and Les Robots émotionnels (2020), and Qui a hacké Garoutzia?, a play she co-wrote with Serge Abiteboul and Gilles Dowek, premiered in Avignon in 2023. Today she is a professor at Sorbonne Université and a CNRS researcher at LISN, where she heads the HUMA-AI-NE chair, and she presides over the Fondation Blaise Pascal.

Now at: Sorbonne University, CNRS and Blaise Pascal Foundation
Born: 1962
Badges: Wayfarer

Years link to their sources.

Timeline

1962–1992

A thesis on speech recognition

Born in Châtillon-sur-Seine in 1962, she earns a baccalauréat in mathematics and physics at the Lycée Lakanal in Sceaux in 1981. A DEA course taught by LIMSI director Jean-Sylvain Liénard draws her to automatic language processing, and under his supervision she defends a thesis in November 1992 on continuous speech recognition with a hybrid neural and Markov system.
1995–2006

Dialogue systems and vocal emotions

After a stint at the Paris office of the Stanford Research Institute, where she works on a system for learning French, she becomes a maître de conférences in Orsay (now Université Paris-Saclay) in 1995 and builds human-machine dialogue systems, including for the SNCF. She turns to modelling emotions in the voice in 2000 and completes her habilitation on emotions in human-machine interaction at Paris XI in Orsay in December 2006.
2011–2012

Professor at Sorbonne Université

She becomes a professor at Sorbonne Université in 2011. In 2012, after a year in its sociology faculty, she joins the CNRS laboratory LIMSI, now LISN, to lead its team on affective and social dimensions of spoken interaction, and works on national and European human-robot interaction projects such as Romeo2 with Aldebaran's NAO and Pepper robots.
2016–2017

Ethics and IEEE P7008

In 2016, she turns to the ethics of AI systems that detect emotions, and her book Des robots et des hommes appears with Plon in 2017. From 2017 she sits on CERNA, the research ethics commission of the Allistene alliance, where she co-writes its report on the ethics of robotics research and leads the one on machine learning. IEEE announces its P7008 standard project on ethically driven nudging for robotic, intelligent and autonomous systems in November 2017, with her as working group chair.
2019–2025

France's digital ethics committee

She sits on France's National Pilot Committee for Digital Ethics (CNPEN) from 2019 to 2025 and co-reports its opinions on the ethics of chatbots and of generative AI. Les Robots émotionnels, her second book, appears with Éditions de l'Observatoire in 2020. The committee's chatbot report goes to the Prime Minister in November 2021.
2019–2026

Legion of Honour and Order of Merit

She is named a Knight of the Legion of Honour in December 2019, and Cédric Villani presents the insignia at the Collège des Bernardins in Paris in April 2022. In May 2026, she is named an Officer of the Ordre national du Mérite.
2023–2026

Garoutzia and two essays

Qui a hacké Garoutzia?, a play about a domestic chatbot that she co-writes with Serge Abiteboul and Gilles Dowek, premieres at the Festival Off d'Avignon in July 2023 in a staging by Lisa Bretzner. Her essays L'IA, ange ou démon ? and Savoir vivre avec l'IA appear with Éditions du Cerf in 2025 and Denoël in 2026.
As of October 2026

HUMA-AI-NE chair at LISN

She is a professor at Sorbonne Université and a CNRS researcher at LISN, where she heads the HUMA-AI-NE chair on affective human-machine interaction and ethics. Since 2021, she also presides over the Fondation Blaise Pascal for outreach in mathematics and computer science. In July 2026, she writes in Le Grand Continent about what AI teaches children.