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March 21, 2023, 5:32 PM ET
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A Citroen 2CV made of wood, thought to be the only one of its kind, has sold for 210,000 euros ($225,000) at auction in France, setting a new price record for the iconic vehicle.
The car, in full working order and registered in France, beat expectations when it went under the hammer in the central town of Tours on Sunday.
The body of the 2CV was hand-crafted out of wood with the same famous curves as the post-war French classic.
It was snapped up by Paris-based collector Jean-Paul Favand, who owns a museum of vintage fairground attractions.
"I'm having difficulty talking after this bet," Favand told AFP by telephone afterwards.
The auction house had issued a guide price of 150,000-200,000 euros, saying it was "much more than a car -- it's a work of art".
Auctioneer Aymeric Rouillac declared the sale a record as he brought down the hammer.
The previous high for a 2CV was set in 2016, when an extremely rare 1961 2CV Sahara in almost mint condition was sold for 172,800 euros by Paris-based auction house Artcurial.
Carpenter Michel Robillard crafted the wooden 2CV's wings out of walnut and its chassis from pear and apple tree wood.
He used a single block of cherry wood for the bonnet, shaped with just chisels and sandpaper.
- 'Crazy project' -
Robillard told AFP he spent five years and approximately 5,000 hours creating the car, beginning in 2011.
"It's like my daughter," he said as he polished the vehicle before the auction. "I had three boys and this was my little daughter."
The 2CV -- which stands for "deux chevaux", meaning "two horsepower" -- was launched in 1948 as Citroen's answer to the Volkswagen Beetle.
Robillard's model is equipped with an original engine from Citroen's later 3CV model, giving it the extra power needed to propel the naturally heavier wooden structure.
He said he had another "crazy project" in mind for the next few years.
He intends to make a wooden version of another French classic -- the Citroen DS, which in 2025 will celebrate 70 years of existence.
A woodworker since the age of 14, Robillard began making miniature wooden replicas of the world's famous automobiles in the 1990s.
He has won several prizes for his intricate work, including for a Harley Davidson motorcycle and its sidecar, which took more than 500 hours to complete.
© Agence France-Presse
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'Thunderdome but less civilized': Trump's proposal for a year-long US party torched by columnist
June 05, 2023
In a caustic column for the New York Times, Michelle Cottle lambasted Donald Trump's proposal on Truth Social for a year-long celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence as nothing more than a political stunt of epic proportions that will go nowhere.
Last week the embattled former president wrapped himself in the flag as he pitched himself as the frontman for a nationwide celebration, saying he wants to give "America’s founding in 1776 the incredible anniversary it truly deserves.”
Noting the now-indicted Trump is making the proposal to suck up all the political oxygen as his 2024 GOP presidential rivals are hitting the campaign trail in Iowa as he hunkers down in Mar-a-Lago, Cottle described his efforts as a "flagrant suck up" to the voters in the midwestern state.
As she wrote, "Mr. Trump would order up a yearlong Great American State Fair, with pavilions showcasing each of the 50 states — ideally at 'the legendary Iowa state fairgrounds,' to which he would invite 'millions and millions of visitors from around the world.'"
READ MORE: Former U.S. attorney predicts possible 'surprises' that could come up in a Trump indictment
Calling his pitch, "an intoxicating blend of nostalgia, spectacle and performative patriotism — with lots of sharp edges, of course," the columnist suggested, "With Mr. Trump as the guiding spirit, any 1776 tribute seems destined to descend into a culture-war cage match. Think Thunderdome but less civilized."
"Mr. Trump’s Hunger/Patriot Games vision seems more than a little fraught. The whole thing has a retro, survival-of-the-fittest, vaguely gladiatorial feel, with the MAGA king sorting boys from girls and winners from losers and generally passing judgment on what constitutes valor and vigor," she accused before adding that the embattled ex-president is using the proposal to distract from the fact that he has little to offer in the way of new policy proposals as he seeks to return to the Oval Office.
"Here’s hoping someone somehow succeeds and manages to short-circuit the former president’s grandiose party planning. As is all too clear by now, any time Mr. Trump is involved, no celebration is ever going to be worth the hangover," she concluded.
You can read more here.
Ever since the poem churning ChatGPT burst on the scene six months ago, expert Gary Marcus has voiced caution against artificial intelligence's ultra-fast development and adoption.
But against AI's apocalyptic doomsayers, the New York University emeritus professor told AFP in a recent interview that the technology's existential threats may currently be "overblown."
"I'm not personally that concerned about extinction risk, at least for now, because the scenarios are not that concrete," said Marcus in San Francisco.
"A more general problem that I am worried about... is that we're building AI systems that we don't have very good control over and I think that poses a lot of risks, (but) maybe not literally existential."
Long before the advent of ChatGPT, Marcus designed his first AI program in high school -- software to translate Latin into English -- and after years of studying child psychology, he founded Geometric Intelligence, a machine learning company later acquired by Uber.
'Why AI?'
In March, alarmed that ChatGPT creator OpenAI was releasing its latest and more powerful AI model with Microsoft, Marcus signed an open letter with more than 1,000 people including Elon Musk calling for a global pause in AI development.
But last week he did not sign the more succinct statement by business leaders and specialists -- including OpenAI boss Sam Altman -- that caused a stir.
Global leaders should be working to reduce "the risk of extinction" from artificial intelligence technology, the signatories insisted.
The one-line statement said tackling the risks from AI should be "a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war".
Signatories included those who are building systems with a view to achieving "general" AI, a technology that would hold the cognitive abilities on par with those of humans.
"If you really think there's existential risk, why are you working on this at all? That's a pretty fair question to ask," Marcus said.
Instead of putting the focus on more far-fetched scenarios where no one survives, society should be putting attention on where real dangers lie, Marcus surmised.
"People might try to manipulate the markets by using AI to cause all kinds of mayhem and then we might, for example, blame the Russians and say, 'look what they've done to our country' when the Russians actually weren't involved," he continued.
"You (could) have this escalation that winds up in nuclear war or something like that. So I think there are scenarios where it was pretty serious. Extinction? I don't know."
Threat to democracy
In the short term, the psychology expert is worried about democracy.
Generative AI software produces increasingly convincing fake photographs, and soon videos, at little cost.
As a result, "elections are going to be won by people who are better at spreading disinformation, and those people may change the rules and make it really difficult to have democracy proceed."
Moreover, "democracy is premised on having reasonable information and making good decisions. If nobody knows what to believe, then how do you even proceed with democracy?"
The author of the book "Rebooting AI" however doesn't think we should abandon hope, still seeing "a lot of upside."
There's definitely a chance AI not yet invented can "help with science, with medicine, with elder care," Marcus said.
"But in the short term, I feel like we're just not ready. There's going to be some harm along the way and we really need to up our game, we have to figure out serious regulation," he said.
At a US Senate hearing in May, seated beside OpenAI's Altman, Marcus argued for the creation of a national or international agency responsible for AI governance.
The idea is also backed by Altman, who has just returned from a European tour where he urged political leaders to find the "right balance" between safety and innovation.
But beware of leaving the power to corporations, warned Marcus.
"The last several months have been a real reminder that the big companies calling the shots here are not necessarily interested in the rest of us," he warned.
© Agence France-Presse
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