Why and how the world is going digital

The lecture " Why and how the world is going digital " was given as part of the annual Liliane Bettencourt Chair in Technological Innovation. It was the very first computer science lecture ever given at the Collège de France. I chose to conduct it from an unconventional, mainstream rather than technical point of view. Indeed, my computer science colleagues and I have long been observing an astonishing phenomenon : while everyone recognizes that digital technology is transforming the world very rapidly and profoundly, in its everyday, scientific, industrial and cultural components, its roots remain largely unknown or misunderstood. Every month, books come out on the " digital revolution ", analyzing its impacts of all kinds, some preaching enthusiasm and others resistance ; while they all talk about the effects, practically none talk about the content and therefore the causes, often even claiming this omission. Yet a lack of accepted knowledge is a major cause of dependency, and therefore dangerous in the long term.