(versione italiana qua)
Fifteen years ago, when I was president of GRIN (the Italian association of university professors and researchers in informatics), I organised a conference together with GII (the equivalent association for informatics engineering) at the Chamber of Deputies, entitled "Informatics, Culture and Society". The European watchword at the time was "Knowledge Society," general elections in our country were imminent, and our community wanted to push politicians to finally come to terms with the need to harness informatics to drive economic development. The proceedings were published here.
Governments have come and gone, watchwords have changed — now it is all about "digital transformation" — but informatics has continued to remain largely absent from our country's development programmes. Were it not for artificial intelligence — which, if nothing else, has attracted some investment simply because everyone in the world is talking about it — we would be looking at a truly cosmic desolation, akin to the void through which the Voyager probes travel, launched decades ago into deep space in search of possible extraterrestrial civilisations.
Having been educated on classical foundations, even though I went on to study as an engineer, I know well that, as George Santayana (the Spanish writer and philosopher of the last century) wrote, «those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it». For this reason, taking advantage of digital technology — which forgets nothing and makes searching far easier than rummaging through a paper archive — I periodically revisit old notes.
Among the papers dating back to the time of that conference, I have rediscovered a note, never previously published, which I reproduce in full below. One can tell that time has passed, since some of the expressions used are no longer current. On the other hand, I am on the one hand pleased to find that the ideas expressed have stood the test of time, and on the other saddened by the thought that none of what I believed necessary has come to pass. The net result is that our country has needlessly squandered many years, and that we are leaving our children a worse future than the one our parents prepared for us. Other factors have obviously contributed to the current situation, but this one is particularly close to my heart, being the domain of my professional work.
I close the preamble here and give the floor to my 2006 self, without changing a single word.
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The society in which we live is commonly described as the Knowledge Society, because knowledge is increasingly essential in work and in the economy. Knowledge, however, is a complex concept with many facets. It is traditionally possessed and operationalised by human beings, who hold it in both its static components (data, facts, relationships, …) and its dynamic ones (procedures, purposes, motivations, …).
In the last fifty years of the twentieth century, drawing on one of the oldest strands of mathematics, the science of informatics began to investigate with growing intensity and depth the formal and structured elements of knowledge, with the aim of understanding what could be accomplished automatically.
In the course of this journey, it soon had at its disposal a technological evolution that was unimaginable and incomparable with that of any other branch of human knowledge. It became possible to represent enormous quantities of data and events at negligible cost; to build automated devices capable of executing highly complex procedures that, at exponentially increasing speeds, analyse such data and their relationships; to connect these devices into ever more complex and interconnected systems that now encompass the entire planet and are available to a large part — though many are still excluded — of humanity. Looking more closely at the situation, however, one realises that these devices and systems are "mechanical" in the most absolute sense of the word: they require a complete, meticulous and specific description of what they are to accomplish, since they are incapable of understanding and learning in the way that human children learn.
From this state of affairs arise the ever-growing difficulties of deploying informatics in any organised social structure, because these are made up of women and men capable of using intuition and experience to make sense — at whatever level of governance they operate — of rules and procedures outlined in their essential steps but not spelled out in detail to handle every possible case. Since computing systems lack this capacity, deploying them effectively within any organisation, however small, is a far more complex undertaking than bringing new people into it.
At the beginning it was straightforward enough: it was a matter of using computers to sort data and facts according to simple criteria, to retrieve from these datasets elements satisfying specific and explicit conditions, to transfer them from one place to another according to well-defined protocols, to calculate summary or forecast data using mathematical formulas.
Over the past fifteen to twenty years, the communications network that has wrapped itself around the globe has made (almost) any piece of data available to (almost) any human being, at least in principle. But the analysis, understanding, and decision-making with respect to this enormous mass of data remain activities specific to human beings. In the same way, within any organisation it is now easy to collect data on every aspect of its functioning — yet the what, when and why of processing that data must be spelled out in every last detail before a computer's response can be put to use.
This is not an easy task; it requires time and patience — far more than would be needed if we used a human being instead of a computer. But then why should we use computers at all? Because they are faster (enormously faster) and — on their own part — never make errors (never, absolutely never), and this has enormous economic value. Learning to do this appropriately is the challenge that every advanced society faces in these years. The key is to understand that what is happening is not simply the replacement of the bookkeeper who tallies the annual balance sheet with a faster machine, but the far more difficult replacement of the human being who does not grind to a halt when faced with a misplaced document or object, and who is capable of recognising when an exceptional case is an error, a fraud, or a significant event.
One of the cultural factors that played a decisive role in deflating the new economy bubble was that people had — mistakenly — assumed that "enormous computing power" plus "very high telecommunications bandwidth" would automatically add up to a new "golden age." But this equation only holds when all the actors are technological devices, not when human beings are involved. In the world of telecommunications, where it is machines alone that interact to carry data from one point to another, the future is already here: in twenty years we have given (almost) every inhabitant of the industrialised world a small device weighing a few grams with which they can communicate with (almost) every other inhabitant of the same part of the world, at negligible cost relative to the distances involved. But when these human beings are members of the same organisation, this technological innovation certainly enables them to work together even when physically apart, and even to exchange documents and work on them collectively — thanks to networks and email — yet the what, how and why of manipulating this data and these documents remains largely inside their heads.
The organisation and formalisation of this knowledge into computing systems capable of supporting women and men in their decisions, simplifying and improving the productive processes in which they operate, is neither simple nor quick, and requires above all a cultural shift: the understanding that informatics is not merely computation or communications networks, but an important component of the way we work. It is not simply a matter of having lots of computers and fast internet connections, but of being able to integrate these "dumb" and "blinkered" technological components into an "intelligent" process in which human beings must be supported and assisted, not obstructed and enslaved by machines — in which the organisation must be streamlined and simplified in order to gain greater power in pursuing its goals. And it is, finally and no less importantly, the capacity to understand that this technological innovation is so disruptive that unless it is introduced and allowed to grow gradually, together with the cultural understanding of it by those who interact with it, and always in alignment with the needs and objectives of the organisation, it will never fulfil its splendid promises.
Spreading computing culture and its correct application is therefore one of the strategic interventions needed to restore competitiveness to the Italian system.
Essential to this strategy is action in the area of public administration. Over the past fifteen years, both central and local governments have indeed spent heavily on introducing innovation in information technologies. How successfully is difficult to assess. One critical issue is that "innovation" is a highly fashionable term, but is often used in a distorted way. Everyone wants to promote it, yet few realise that what society actually cares about is innovation understood as an end, not as a means in itself. As such, its success can only truly be judged in retrospect. In the process of becoming, it is merely a change — and since we know that change always carries costs, we are rightly suspicious. A product or service may be technologically very innovative yet completely miss the true purpose of innovation: being useful to people and making society better. Central and local public administrations have certainly improved their computing technology in recent years. But the cases in which this has produced innovation that has genuinely improved citizens' lives are very few.
There are of course, especially at the central level, problems of complexity and scale. At every level there are cultural problems: the assumption is made that, since new computing systems have been acquired, everything will work better. Politicians struggle to grasp how informatics and its technologies change society and organisations, and yield to the temptations offered by the technological and industrial lobbies. The result is that a great deal of money is spent, but very little of the innovation that citizens actually need is delivered. If the citizen were a shareholder measuring the return on the investment that has been made over the past fifteen years with their tax money, they would have had to dismiss the management long ago. But we would find ourselves with practically no politicians left, of any stripe.
It is therefore necessary for politicians to understand that the computing revolution will have a far greater reach than the industrial revolution that so profoundly transformed the world in the nineteenth century — because that revolution exercised its effects essentially on the physical capabilities of human beings, whereas this one influences the sphere of cognitive activity, which is what makes us what we are. The next step is to ensure that this understanding is translated into operational practice and into the organisation of public administration. Finally, it is essential to convert this awareness into technological changes aimed at increasing the effectiveness of institutional goals, and to measure quantitatively the extent of any benefits achieved. Computing systems must be regarded — as has been the case in the private sector for at least ten years — as just as essential as financial and administrative systems for the control and governance of an organisation. Just as the structuring and direction of financial flows shapes corporate relationships and dynamics, so too does the flow of information. Public administration must develop, from within, the role and importance of its computing systems and use them synergistically with its other governance tools to achieve flexibility, process efficiency, and effectiveness toward citizens. A solid core of competencies already exists, both at central and local level, but it will need to be adequately strengthened, acting also in cooperation with all the relevant and available social forces, if these goals are genuinely to be achieved.
Acting in this way on public administration is essential for Italy's growth. First, because focusing on outcomes is the only correct approach to measuring whether technological improvement is truly delivering the innovation that citizens need. Then because public administration is one of the largest markets in the entire information technology sector, and the one on which politics is best placed to act directly. Public administration is to the politician what their own company is to a top manager: the politician too must answer to their "shareholders" — that is, the citizens — and can intervene directly in how their organisation works and operates.
Public administration, by virtue of its size and its centrality within the national system, is an essential component in determining Italy's future and could constitute the strategic objective capable of guiding and fostering development in the years ahead.
It should also be borne in mind that at the present time Italian production in the computing sector is directed almost entirely at the domestic market. Our country — uniquely among all G7 nations — exports virtually no software. From this perspective, Italy is a glaring anomaly: the only absentee among all countries with a heavily industrialised economy. This situation, which in itself appears dramatic from an industrial standpoint, can nonetheless be viewed optimistically as an opportunity. It is clear that informatics represents for Italy a sector offering enormous room for growth in international markets, a major opportunity for economic expansion. The problem is that an Italian software industry cannot be conjured up overnight. Steps must certainly be taken immediately in this direction. But what will require a great deal of time — because it is a matter of educating people and allowing them to absorb new concepts — is genuine, deep awareness on the part of the country's ruling class of the capabilities and opportunities of informatics. This is a cultural deficit that calls for long-term interventions.
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Those who have followed me this far will have had ample opportunity to form their own reflections.
--The original version (in italian) has been published by "Key4Biz" on 11 October 2021.
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Sono pubblicati solo i commenti che rispettano le norme di legge, le regole della buona educazione e sono attinenti agli argomenti trattati: siamo aperti alla discussione, non alla polemica.