

The Human Factor: Copiloting the Future with AI
A conversation with Stanislas Bocquet, founder and CEO of PALO IT, a global innovation and software development company dedicated to helping organizations craft tech as a force for good
July 26, 2024


During the 2024 Freedom of Mobility Forum annual debate, panelist Manal Jalloul, co-founder and CEO of AI Lab, promoted artificial intelligence as a vital ally in optimizing mobility solutions through predictive analytics.
In our conversation with Stanislas Bocquet, he further explored the key aspects of the dynamic relationship between humans and AI, including the benefits of positive biases.
Freedom of Mobility Forum (FOMF): How do you perceive the current relationship between humans and AI, and how is it evolving?
Stanislas Bocquet: The relationship between humans and AI is quite intricate. While AI can pull off impressive feats right away, its real value shines through iterative, repetitive interactions with human input. For example, in content summarization, AI’s initial output is impressive, but the real value for organizations comes from human refinement and enhancement, adding quality and nuance. This evolving partnership is aptly referred to as a “copiloting” relationship. In short, humans must stay in the loop to fully leverage AI’s potential.
FOMF: How might AI impact human interaction with transportation systems in the future, and what benefits and challenges could arise?
Bocquet: AI’s impact on mobility habits is set to be profound. Consider the differences between Waze, Google Maps, or Apple Maps. Waze focuses on speed, always providing the fastest route, while Google Maps considers real-time traffic, safety and eco-friendliness, offering multiple options. Future benefits include smart traffic management, predictive vehicle maintenance and enhanced safety.
What is the key challenge? I will be straightforward: it is the overreliance on AI! What happens when your GPS fails? From a business or a city perspective, the solutions lie in the system: infrastructure should be ready, and deployed at acceptable costs, and the means of transportation should be interoperable. You see, there are many individual benefits, as long as we are ready to face and embrace those collective challenges in the future.
FOMF: How can AI algorithms personalize travel recommendations while ensuring equity and minimizing biases?
Bocquet: Personalizing travel recommendations with AI requires a careful balance. Equity doesn’t mean eliminating all biases; positive biases can enhance user experiences. For instance, promoting family-run restaurants over fast-food chains in tourist regions fosters equity. Companies need to embed their core values into AI algorithms to ensure diverse preferences are considered without discriminatory biases. Personalized travel recommendations should consider diverse preferences. Transparency, fairness and ongoing evaluation are essential to maintain equitable services.
Bias is about ethics, right? Ethically, what do we have to watch out for? Data provenance, sensitive information disclosure, lack of transparency, unfair outcomes and so on. How do we manage that?
In the end, it’s always a question of you or your company facing your personal community or facing the authorities. The recipe: always keep the human in the loop. Always consider the consequences of AI decisions.
As a tech company at PALO IT, we have grown very fast over the last two years. We updated our policy and trained our team to continuously address those ethical concerns with generative AI. We are all committed to recognizing the need to keep abreast of advances, research and best practices. We believe in the open-source approach. We believe in the superiority of knowledge over property. We believe it is key to share data – which is what we do – and to connect with a lot of communities to always be conscious of our actions.
FOMF: From an environmental perspective, how can AI-driven solutions help reduce the consumption of natural resources in the transportation sector?
Bocquet: AI-driven solutions can significantly reduce the consumption of natural resources in the transportation sector. For instance, Singapore’s Land Transport Authority has implemented AI-driven smart bus systems that adjust routes and schedules in real time based on passenger demand and traffic conditions, improving fuel efficiency and reducing emissions. Similarly, Volvo has launched pilot projects with autonomous electric buses in cities like Gothenburg, Sweden. Another example is Transport for London, which uses AI to predict and manage transport routes to improve public transportation.
These buses use AI for efficient route planning and energy management, reducing overall energy consumption and emissions.


Even in the aviation sector, which is also part of the transportation sector, we are now seeing AI being used to adjust flight routes to minimize the negative effect of “contrails” – those water condensation trails left in the sky by high-flying aircrafts – which contribute to the greenhouse effect. They account for roughly 35% of aviation’s global warming impact, over half the impact of the world’s jet fuel.
Programs exist to bring together large amounts of data like satellite imagery, weather and flight path data, and to use AI to develop contrail forecast maps so that pilots can choose routes and altitudes that avoid creating contrails – with the goal to reduce contrails by around 50%.
FOMF: What are your recommendations to ensure AI remains an ally?
Bocquet: First, don’t spend too much time defining a strategy! Focus on execution rather than over-strategizing. Many clients spend too much time defining strategies instead of experimenting: getting ideas is the easy part! The key is to execute quickly, measure impact and continuously adjust. You need to be sure of your investment and your impact before scaling. Explore different usages and test, test, test.
Secondly, train your teams to shift from a “fixed” mindset to a “growth” mindset and then to a “conscious” mindset. Team members need to be constantly conscious of the impact of their decisions on the planet and people.
Lastly, collaborate and share with communities and companies that share your values and expertise.
As AI evolves, its role as a “copilot” alongside humans becomes increasingly significant: a lot of the value delivered by AI comes through interaction with humans. The question now is how to get humans to inject quality and nuance into the output. Striking the right balance — leveraging AI’s strengths while addressing its challenges — is essential for a harmonious and beneficial partnership.