Democracy and technology run at different speeds. The first, in theory, should walk slowly, in a group, agreeing with everyone before each step, leaving no one behind. The second runs, alone, with her head down, without a finish line, without looking at the panorama around her. And so the combination of democracy and technology has always been complicated, especially when the former is called upon to design a regulatory framework to limit the possible negative effects of the latter. Because while democracy studies and tries to understand the potential and risks of a new technology, it continues to run fast, without pause.
This is why the appointment of Giuliano Amato, 85 years old, at the helm of the Artificial Intelligence Algorithms Commission has left many dumbfounded. Not so much for a question of age, being elderly does not necessarily mean being ignorant of technologies, but rather for the lack of experience of the president emeritus of the Constitutional Court in the field of artificial intelligence.
Especially if we look at his counterparts. In England the government has appointed Ian Hogarth, 38 years old, a Cambridge graduate in Computer Science with a thesis in Machine Learning, with 50 investments in startups and head of a 250 million euro investment fund, he was recently included in the Time list of 100 most influential people in the field of artificial intelligence.
The objectives of the group created by the British government are to carry out research and find technological solutions that can guarantee the security of artificial intelligence systems. And what will the Italian Algorithms Commission deal with instead? It will have to produce a fact-finding investigation on artificial intelligence to understand the possible implications, positive and negative, for the productive world, in particular on publishing and information. The members are ten including university professors and experts such as Francesco Bonchi, director of research at the Center for Artificial Intelligence, Giuseppe De Pietro, director of the Institute of High Performance Computing and Networks of the Cnr and president of the Future artificial intelligence research foundation who manages the national partnership on artificial intelligence and the journalist Roberto Sommella director of Milano Finanza.
The commission will have to listen to the associations involved in the world of information such as Fnsi, Odg Nazionale, Fieg, National Secretariat Slc Cgil, Fistel Cisl and Uilcom Uil. According to sources at Palazzo Chigi, Prime Minister Meloni was irritated by the decision of the undersecretary for publishing Alberto Barachini who was guilty of appointing Amato without informing her. Frictions eased after the undersecretary’s apology: “I personally apologized for the communication mix-up.” In recent days, the decree was also signed for the establishment of another coordination committee which will have the task of supporting the updating of strategies on the use of artificial intelligence.
The group, formed by the Undersecretary to the Presidency of the Council for Technological Innovation, Alessio Butti, will include 13 experts. Among them the popularizer Marco Camisani Calzolari, Giuliano Noci, professor of Strategy and Marketing at the Polytechnic of Milan, and the theologian expert in AI Paolo Benanti.
As mentioned, all countries in the world are facing the artificial intelligence issue. In the United States they have left big tech companies the option to voluntarily adhere to some sort of code of ethics. While the European Union approved a bill in June this year that imposes a series of limitations on artificial intelligence, as well as transparency obligations for generative artificial intelligence, which however will not come into force before 2025. The Commission will therefore have a fundamental role in being able to regulate AI so as not to be passive in the face of the future but to be able to dominate it.
