Latest News
- 2025 09 15 I started a postdoc at the École normale supérieure Paris-Saclay!
- 2025 04 01 My latest article, "AI and the Disengagement of the State: Algorithmic Targeting of Ship Inspections", has been published in the latest issue of Multitudes [fr]!
- 2025 02 03 Back in Europe, looking forward to my next position!
- 2024 11 29 I presented the paper "Disengagement through Algorithms: How Traditional Organizations Aim for Experts’ Satisfaction" at the AI Ethics and Governance Lab at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology!
Academic Experience
- 2025 09 > 2027 08 Postdoctoral researcher, PEPR ICCARE, École Normale Supérieure Paris-Saclay.
My ongoing project focuses on how cultural insitutions in French rural areas try to diversify their audiences. I am under the supervision of Volny Fages, PI of THEMIS, a sub of the PEPR ICCARE (national research program on cultural and creative industries). I am also affiliated with the IDHE.S (Institutions and Historical Dynamics of the Economy and the Society) joint research center. - 2024 02 > 2025 01 Postdoctoral researcher, JSPS, The University of Tokyo.
I aimed at building a socio-informatics mapping of goals and characteristics of music recommender systems. As a JSPS fellow, I was affiliated with the Graduate School of Information Science and Technology and the Japanese-French Laboratory of Informatics, under the co-supervision of Ryohei Hisano and Philippe Codognet. - 2023 08 > 2023 12 Research assistant, ERC Socsemics, Centre Marc Bloch, Berlin.
I was in charge of the qualitative part of a study of the political participation on Twitter in 2020 (15 interviews), within the computational social science team, under the supervision of Camille Roth (CNRS). - 2018 11 > 2023 10 PhD candidate, CNRS, Centre Marc Bloch.
I studied the manufacture, the design and the use of recommender and decision-making systems in organisations (100+ interviews), under the supervision of Camille Roth and Francis Chateauraynaud (EHESS). I was funded by a CNRS doctoral contract.
During my PhD, I paid a visit to the Maison française d'Oxford (2023), the French-australian laboratory for human-autonomous agents teaming (CROSSING), Adelaide (2023) and the National Taipei University of Education, Taiwan (2022), I reviewed papers for the ACM Conference Designing Interactive Systems in 2021 and 2022, co-organised a writing workshop (2020) and co-supervised two interns, Jonas Stein and Quentin Villermet (2020). At Centre Marc Bloch, I was also a doctoral students representative (from 2019 to 2021). Finally, I gave some classes in sociology and project management at Télécom St-Etienne, France (2018, 2019) and in digital cultures at the Humboldt University, Berlin (2019). - 2017 > 2018 Research assistant, ANR Algodiv, Centre Marc Bloch.
I led a qualitative study of the manufacture of recommender systems by engineers (30 interviews), under the supervision of Camille Roth.
Academic Projects
Practices of AI
Publications
- 2025 Poiroux, J. AI and the Disengagement of the State: Algorithmic Targeting of Ship Inspections. Multitudes Mineure 98, Misadventures of the Algorithmic Bureaucraty, 190-196 [fr].
- 2024 Poiroux, J. Disengagement through Algorithms: How Traditional Organizations Aim for Experts’ Satisfaction. Proceedings of the AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society 7, 1145–1156.
Presented at the AI Ethics and Governance Lab, CAIRE, HKUST (Hong Kong, 2024), and at the AIES conference (San José, CA, 2024).
- 2023 Poiroux, J., Maudet, N., Pineau, K., Brulé, E., & Tabard, A. Design Indirections: How Designers Find Their Ways in Shaping Algorithmic Systems. Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), 33, 173–204.
Presented at the 4S conference (Honolulu – online, 2023), and at the WZB Social Science Center (Berlin, 2022).
- 2022 Roth, C., Poiroux, J. Guiding Code Development: The Case of Recommender Systems. RESET [fr].
Presented at the University of Waseda (Tokyo, 2024), at the STS-CH conference (Basel, 2023), at the International Conference on Organisational Sociology (Trondheim, 2022), at the Centre for Research on Media Innovations (Oslo, 2022), at the CNRS Center for Internet and Society (Paris, 2022), and at the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society conference Infrastructures of Autonomy (Berlin, 2022).
Drafts
- The Manufacture of Algorithms.
With Camille Roth (CNRS).
- Algorithmic alignment and misalignment: For a Transparency of Intentions.
With Jean-Philippe Diguet (CNRS). Presented at the AusSTS Workshop (Sydney, 2023), the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society (Melbourne, 2023) and the French-australian laboratory for human-autonomous agents teaming (Adelaide, 2023).
Algorithms in Culture
Publications
- 2022 Poiroux, J. Algorithmic cultural recommendation. Publictionnaire, online encyclopaedic dictionary of publics [fr].
- 2021 Poiroux, J. Algorithms behind the controls. La vie des Idées [fr].
- 2021 Villermet, Q., Poiroux, J., Moussallam, M., Louail, T., & Roth, C. Follow the guides: disentangling human and algorithmic curation in online music consumption. RecSys '21: Fifteenth ACM Conference on Recommender Systems, 380–389. Honorable mention: best paper.
Drafts
- Recommendation as a Cultural Activity.
- A Comparative Study of the Electronic Music Scene in Tokyo and Berlin.
With Dougal Shakespeare (CNRS). Presented at the conference "Japan and sound: modernity, social constructs and power relations" (Bordeaux – online, 2024).
- Japanese Music Consumption in France.
With Dougal Shakespeare (CNRS).
- The Organisational Activity of Music Recommendation.
Presented at the University of Waseda (Tokyo, 2024).
Other Drafts
- A New List to Learn Kanjis.
- Political Participation on Twitter.
With Camille Roth (PI) and Lena Mangold (CNRS), within the ERC Socsemics project.
My interest in this topic can be traced back to the poster "User Confinement On Twitter: Where Structural and Semantic Communities Intersect" presented with Jonas Stein and Camille Roth at Virtual Sunbelt (Online, 2020) and to my master thesis "An experiment to visualise socio-semantic confinement on Twitter" supervised by Camille Roth (2017).
- Digital Designers' Practices and Criticism.
With Karl Pineau (École de Design Nantes Atlantique). Presented at the XX ISA World Congress of Sociology (Melbourne, 2023), and at the Technical University (Compiègne, 2022).
PhD Thesis
- 2023 The Design of Algorithms: Manufacture and Impact within Organizations. A Sociology of Engagement and Disengagement Processes in a Computational Regime.
Supervised by Camille Roth and Francis Chateauraynaud. Defended at the School of Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS), Paris, before a committee composed of Cécile Méadel (president), Jean-Samuel Beuscart (reviewer), Antoinette Rouvroy (reviewer), Nicolas Benvegnu, and Thierry Ménissier.
This thesis aims to take a pragmatic look at the "algorithmisation" of recommendation and decision-making within organisations. It lies at the intersection of research that explores the use of automation and evaluation technologies in organisations and that which questions the intentions and opacity of algorithms. Starting from the premise that the initial step in algorithmisation is the "datafication" (sometimes massive) of consumption and decision-making activities, we draw upon the concept of "algorithmic governmentality" to examine how designers and users of algorithms harness them to achieve their objectives.To accomplish this, we conducted four studies involving around a hundred actors (initiators, engineers, digital designers, and users) of recommendation algorithms and organisational algorithms. We demonstrate, in particular, that initiators employ algorithms – crafted by engineers and digital designers – not to automate actions but to disengage from any cultural or decision-making prescription. Consequently, it falls upon users to make choices and become engaged. In the case of recommendation, algorithm evaluation is oriented towards consumption, while for decisions support, priority is given to utility and interpretability of results. This conclusion suggests the emergence of a "satisfaction regime," providing an optimal framework for initiators to align objectives related to organisation and use.
Degrees
- 2023 PhD in sociology, School of Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS), Paris.
- 2017 Master in social sciences, major in design and information architecture, École Normale Supérieure of Lyon.
I did an internship and wrote the master thesis "An Experiment to Visualise Socio-semantic Confinement on Twitter" under the supervision of Camille Roth (2017), which was the start of the research journey with him. I spent one Erasmus semester at the University of Oslo, where I took classes in design and education (2016).
- 2014 Bachelor in communication studies, major in journalism, University Paris VIII (in collaboration with Radio France).
- 2013 Advanced technical degree in audiovisual studies, major in production management, National Audiovisual Institute, Paris.
Non-academic skills
- I can work in English, French and German, and order food in Japanese (いただきます).
- Although it's being a while (2016), I am a proud co-founder and first co-president of two French non-profit organisations, Designers Éthiques and Éditions Kaïa.
The former (still) promotes sustainable digital design. In the beginning, we mainly organised events under the brand Ethics by design, including the first one in Lyon (2017) and a bigger one in Paris (2018). Besides, we managed a community of designers.
With Éditions Kaïa, my enthousiastic mates and I printed online journalistic stories on high quality paper booklets, we then shipped to loyal subscribers. Unfortunately, the project has been paused in 2019.
These two experiences probably find their roots in the modest consulting activity I co-managed while studying in Lyon (2015).
1. Looking for my previous website, featuring my PhD blog [fr] and a PhD countdown?
Presented at the AI Ethics and Governance Lab, CAIRE, HKUST (Hong Kong, 2024), and at the AIES conference (San José, CA, 2024).
Presented at the 4S conference (Honolulu – online, 2023), and at the WZB Social Science Center (Berlin, 2022).
Presented at the University of Waseda (Tokyo, 2024), at the STS-CH conference (Basel, 2023), at the International Conference on Organisational Sociology (Trondheim, 2022), at the Centre for Research on Media Innovations (Oslo, 2022), at the CNRS Center for Internet and Society (Paris, 2022), and at the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society conference Infrastructures of Autonomy (Berlin, 2022).
- The Manufacture of Algorithms.
With Camille Roth (CNRS). - Algorithmic alignment and misalignment: For a Transparency of Intentions.
With Jean-Philippe Diguet (CNRS). Presented at the AusSTS Workshop (Sydney, 2023), the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society (Melbourne, 2023) and the French-australian laboratory for human-autonomous agents teaming (Adelaide, 2023).
Algorithms in Culture
Publications
- 2022 Poiroux, J. Algorithmic cultural recommendation. Publictionnaire, online encyclopaedic dictionary of publics [fr].
- 2021 Poiroux, J. Algorithms behind the controls. La vie des Idées [fr].
- 2021 Villermet, Q., Poiroux, J., Moussallam, M., Louail, T., & Roth, C. Follow the guides: disentangling human and algorithmic curation in online music consumption. RecSys '21: Fifteenth ACM Conference on Recommender Systems, 380–389. Honorable mention: best paper.
Drafts
- Recommendation as a Cultural Activity.
- A Comparative Study of the Electronic Music Scene in Tokyo and Berlin.
With Dougal Shakespeare (CNRS). Presented at the conference "Japan and sound: modernity, social constructs and power relations" (Bordeaux – online, 2024).
- Japanese Music Consumption in France.
With Dougal Shakespeare (CNRS).
- The Organisational Activity of Music Recommendation.
Presented at the University of Waseda (Tokyo, 2024).
Other Drafts
- A New List to Learn Kanjis.
- Political Participation on Twitter.
With Camille Roth (PI) and Lena Mangold (CNRS), within the ERC Socsemics project.
My interest in this topic can be traced back to the poster "User Confinement On Twitter: Where Structural and Semantic Communities Intersect" presented with Jonas Stein and Camille Roth at Virtual Sunbelt (Online, 2020) and to my master thesis "An experiment to visualise socio-semantic confinement on Twitter" supervised by Camille Roth (2017).
- Digital Designers' Practices and Criticism.
With Karl Pineau (École de Design Nantes Atlantique). Presented at the XX ISA World Congress of Sociology (Melbourne, 2023), and at the Technical University (Compiègne, 2022).
PhD Thesis
- 2023 The Design of Algorithms: Manufacture and Impact within Organizations. A Sociology of Engagement and Disengagement Processes in a Computational Regime.
Supervised by Camille Roth and Francis Chateauraynaud. Defended at the School of Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS), Paris, before a committee composed of Cécile Méadel (president), Jean-Samuel Beuscart (reviewer), Antoinette Rouvroy (reviewer), Nicolas Benvegnu, and Thierry Ménissier.
This thesis aims to take a pragmatic look at the "algorithmisation" of recommendation and decision-making within organisations. It lies at the intersection of research that explores the use of automation and evaluation technologies in organisations and that which questions the intentions and opacity of algorithms. Starting from the premise that the initial step in algorithmisation is the "datafication" (sometimes massive) of consumption and decision-making activities, we draw upon the concept of "algorithmic governmentality" to examine how designers and users of algorithms harness them to achieve their objectives.To accomplish this, we conducted four studies involving around a hundred actors (initiators, engineers, digital designers, and users) of recommendation algorithms and organisational algorithms. We demonstrate, in particular, that initiators employ algorithms – crafted by engineers and digital designers – not to automate actions but to disengage from any cultural or decision-making prescription. Consequently, it falls upon users to make choices and become engaged. In the case of recommendation, algorithm evaluation is oriented towards consumption, while for decisions support, priority is given to utility and interpretability of results. This conclusion suggests the emergence of a "satisfaction regime," providing an optimal framework for initiators to align objectives related to organisation and use.
Degrees
- 2023 PhD in sociology, School of Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS), Paris.
- 2017 Master in social sciences, major in design and information architecture, École Normale Supérieure of Lyon.
I did an internship and wrote the master thesis "An Experiment to Visualise Socio-semantic Confinement on Twitter" under the supervision of Camille Roth (2017), which was the start of the research journey with him. I spent one Erasmus semester at the University of Oslo, where I took classes in design and education (2016).
- 2014 Bachelor in communication studies, major in journalism, University Paris VIII (in collaboration with Radio France).
- 2013 Advanced technical degree in audiovisual studies, major in production management, National Audiovisual Institute, Paris.
Non-academic skills
- I can work in English, French and German, and order food in Japanese (いただきます).
- Although it's being a while (2016), I am a proud co-founder and first co-president of two French non-profit organisations, Designers Éthiques and Éditions Kaïa.
The former (still) promotes sustainable digital design. In the beginning, we mainly organised events under the brand Ethics by design, including the first one in Lyon (2017) and a bigger one in Paris (2018). Besides, we managed a community of designers.
With Éditions Kaïa, my enthousiastic mates and I printed online journalistic stories on high quality paper booklets, we then shipped to loyal subscribers. Unfortunately, the project has been paused in 2019.
These two experiences probably find their roots in the modest consulting activity I co-managed while studying in Lyon (2015).
1. Looking for my previous website, featuring my PhD blog [fr] and a PhD countdown?
- Recommendation as a Cultural Activity.
- A Comparative Study of the Electronic Music Scene in Tokyo and Berlin.
With Dougal Shakespeare (CNRS). Presented at the conference "Japan and sound: modernity, social constructs and power relations" (Bordeaux – online, 2024). - Japanese Music Consumption in France.
With Dougal Shakespeare (CNRS). - The Organisational Activity of Music Recommendation.
Presented at the University of Waseda (Tokyo, 2024).
Other Drafts
- A New List to Learn Kanjis.
- Political Participation on Twitter.
With Camille Roth (PI) and Lena Mangold (CNRS), within the ERC Socsemics project.
My interest in this topic can be traced back to the poster "User Confinement On Twitter: Where Structural and Semantic Communities Intersect" presented with Jonas Stein and Camille Roth at Virtual Sunbelt (Online, 2020) and to my master thesis "An experiment to visualise socio-semantic confinement on Twitter" supervised by Camille Roth (2017). - Digital Designers' Practices and Criticism.
With Karl Pineau (École de Design Nantes Atlantique). Presented at the XX ISA World Congress of Sociology (Melbourne, 2023), and at the Technical University (Compiègne, 2022).
PhD Thesis
- 2023 The Design of Algorithms: Manufacture and Impact within Organizations. A Sociology of Engagement and Disengagement Processes in a Computational Regime.
Supervised by Camille Roth and Francis Chateauraynaud. Defended at the School of Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS), Paris, before a committee composed of Cécile Méadel (president), Jean-Samuel Beuscart (reviewer), Antoinette Rouvroy (reviewer), Nicolas Benvegnu, and Thierry Ménissier.
This thesis aims to take a pragmatic look at the "algorithmisation" of recommendation and decision-making within organisations. It lies at the intersection of research that explores the use of automation and evaluation technologies in organisations and that which questions the intentions and opacity of algorithms. Starting from the premise that the initial step in algorithmisation is the "datafication" (sometimes massive) of consumption and decision-making activities, we draw upon the concept of "algorithmic governmentality" to examine how designers and users of algorithms harness them to achieve their objectives.To accomplish this, we conducted four studies involving around a hundred actors (initiators, engineers, digital designers, and users) of recommendation algorithms and organisational algorithms. We demonstrate, in particular, that initiators employ algorithms – crafted by engineers and digital designers – not to automate actions but to disengage from any cultural or decision-making prescription. Consequently, it falls upon users to make choices and become engaged. In the case of recommendation, algorithm evaluation is oriented towards consumption, while for decisions support, priority is given to utility and interpretability of results. This conclusion suggests the emergence of a "satisfaction regime," providing an optimal framework for initiators to align objectives related to organisation and use.
Degrees
- 2023 PhD in sociology, School of Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS), Paris.
- 2017 Master in social sciences, major in design and information architecture, École Normale Supérieure of Lyon.
I did an internship and wrote the master thesis "An Experiment to Visualise Socio-semantic Confinement on Twitter" under the supervision of Camille Roth (2017), which was the start of the research journey with him. I spent one Erasmus semester at the University of Oslo, where I took classes in design and education (2016). - 2014 Bachelor in communication studies, major in journalism, University Paris VIII (in collaboration with Radio France).
- 2013 Advanced technical degree in audiovisual studies, major in production management, National Audiovisual Institute, Paris.
Non-academic skills
- I can work in English, French and German, and order food in Japanese (いただきます).
- Although it's being a while (2016), I am a proud co-founder and first co-president of two French non-profit organisations, Designers Éthiques and Éditions Kaïa. The former (still) promotes sustainable digital design. In the beginning, we mainly organised events under the brand Ethics by design, including the first one in Lyon (2017) and a bigger one in Paris (2018). Besides, we managed a community of designers. With Éditions Kaïa, my enthousiastic mates and I printed online journalistic stories on high quality paper booklets, we then shipped to loyal subscribers. Unfortunately, the project has been paused in 2019. These two experiences probably find their roots in the modest consulting activity I co-managed while studying in Lyon (2015).
1. Looking for my previous website, featuring my PhD blog [fr] and a PhD countdown?