Hubert Étienne and convivence: an ethics of attention for the digital age

French philosopher Hubert Étienne offers a perspective highly relevant to contemporary debates on convivence. Drawing on René Girard, he argues that modern societies are shaped by mimetic rivalry — desires that imitate one another, tensions that escalate, and conflicts that spread — now intensified by social media and digital algorithms.

Étienne goes beyond diagnosis. Faced with technologies designed to capture and exploit human attention, he advocates an ethics of attention: a way of orienting our social, economic, and political relations toward moderation, responsibility, and care for others. This ethics should also guide the development of artificial intelligence, which today remains too heavily oriented toward conflict, polarization, and the maximization of engagement.

His experience at Meta, where he worked on the ethical deployment of AI models, allowed him to observe both the potential and the risks of these technologies when detached from a humanistic horizon. Returning to France, he founded Quintessence AI, a centre dedicated to educating citizens and rethinking the social impact of artificial intelligence.

This reflection resonates deeply with the Andalusian tradition of convivence, understood not as the absence of conflict, but as the art of living together in difference. Historic Córdoba knew how to cultivate convivence through norms, shared rhythms, and mutual attention that made respect possible.

Today, in the digital sphere, this convivence is at risk. Étienne’s reflection reminds us that without fair attention, without limits, and without ethics, no common life is possible. Convivence, even in the age of artificial intelligence, remains a collective task.