(versione italiana qua)
On Tuesday, June 16th, in the press room of the Chamber of Deputies, a press conference was held to present an open letter to society titled "For a Realistic Vision of Artificial Intelligence", signed so far by more than 350 researchers working in public and private research institutions in Italy and around the world.
The letter, promoted by myself and Walter Quattrociocchi of Sapienza University of Rome, aims to bring the discussion on artificial intelligence (AI) back to more realistic grounds, stripping it of anthropomorphized visions that oscillate between the salvific and the apocalyptic.
We were fortunate to have the kind hospitality of the Vice President of the Chamber, Hon. Anna Ascani, who opened the event by thanking us for the initiative and recognizing the importance of bringing it to a venue where there is a need to understand what must then be regulated. On the subject of AI, the Chamber has been working at various levels for some time, in collaboration with the academic world. There is awareness of the risks, but also of the opportunities that Italian citizens could benefit from, with full recognition that this is an extremely sophisticated technology that cannot, however, replace human beings. It is therefore important, she concluded, the message that this letter is conveying.
Subsequently, Quattrociocchi briefly presented the motivations behind the letter, which is to fill a narrative void created by this frenetic and, in some ways, unexpected advancement of generative artificial intelligence (GAI), which simulates knowledge at the level of the best experts without truly possessing it. A narrative has been created that, in some cases, is divorced from the reality of what is objectively and scientifically verifiable. The intention is not to exclude debate on opinions, but to distinguish between opinions, visions, and experimental evidence—an approach that is fundamental especially when dealing with abstract themes such as intelligence and consciousness. This scientific approach has, paradoxically, become more difficult in recent years, where the dominance of social media in the realm of communication rewards suggestiveness over precision. The letter's objective is to foster the development of a solid understanding of this technological innovation, in collaboration with academia, politics, and the media.
Next, Andrea Cerroni, sociologist of science and technology at Roma Tre University, recalled that technology itself carries within it a vision of the world and a societal model, defined by those who built that technology. Moreover, the data on which these technologies are based are selected by someone who chose them based on their needs and objectives. This is a legitimate process, but one that often lacks transparency. In the specific case of GAI, this can lead to cognitive oligopolies and opaque logic, inducing users to mistake what these systems produce for absolute truth. He also noted that even those who practice science do not produce "The Truth" but rather what seems to be a reasonable explanation of the phenomena we observe.
Then, Andrea Orlandini, from the Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies at the CNR, spoke about the apparent simplification resulting from GAI, which makes even complex fields of knowledge easily accessible to everyone, yet for which people often lack the knowledge to evaluate the reliability of responses that, being generated on a statistical basis, are inevitably prone to contain what are called "hallucinations"—that is, statistically plausible but incorrect sequences. The letter, he added, aims to separate the scientific context, in which different viewpoints—perhaps in disagreement with each other—are presented with an approach based on logical rigor and experimental evidence, from the informational-educational realm which, in a rapidly evolving sector, sometimes leads to erroneous simplifications and misleading exaggerations, often driven by strong economic interests.
Concluding the first round of scientific reflections, Salvatore Orlando, from the Department of Law and Business Economics at Sapienza, who began by reinforcing Cerroni's previous observation, noting that data is not objectively found in nature but is "collected" by a subject, who therefore performs not only a selection on "what" to collect but also decides how and when to gather these elements on which interpretations and theories are then built. He then emphasized, as a legal scholar, that one can speak of true "decisions" only in the presence of a human being or a legal entity. Finally, he recalled the danger of the authorization granted by the Artificial Intelligence Act to platforms to acquire and process sensitive data of everyone in order to make decisions regarding the possible removal of content.
Hon. Mascaretti, while appreciating the initiative and the common-sense reflection on society's perception of GAI, criticized some recent cultural and political initiatives involving the anthropomorphization of this technology, which have received extensive media coverage that does not contribute to a real understanding of its mechanisms. He then presented an interesting and apt comparison about how the spread of the automobile in the postwar period brought a large mass of Italians to discover corners of this beautiful country (and beyond) that they previously could not reach and know, just as the technology of generative artificial intelligence (GAI) enables many people to access domains of knowledge that were previously difficult and thus beyond the reach of mass understanding. He concluded by recalling the commercial interests behind GAI tools, appreciating our initiative to push the media world to address this issue on more realistic grounds, an aspect of extreme importance especially for younger generations.
In my remarks, I first took up Hon. Mascaretti's comparison, noting the benefits that GAI can bring—for example, helping people understand a medical diagnosis or a court ruling—but also the risks connected to errors that could be present in these explanations, which are unavoidable because they are mathematically inherent to how these systems construct their output. Additionally, I recalled how younger generations are the most defenseless, by virtue of their lack of experience and incomplete knowledge. As I discussed in my recent article, there is experimental evidence showing that the availability of GAI tools with no restrictions on their use leads students in training to bypass that phase of cognitive effort that is inseparable from the process of acquiring knowledge and skills. Therefore, if we do not want to lose the opportunity for future generations to acquire those high-level cognitive competencies that are increasingly necessary in an increasingly complex digital society, we will need to discuss and reflect on what can be done.
In the second round, Hon. Iaria spoke, appreciating the manifesto's call to explain what artificial intelligence really is, which is not human—a myth that must absolutely be dispelled—adding that it is necessary to learn to use these tools that will be increasingly present in the world of work. Next, Hon. Caso, who reiterated that the crux is understanding this technology and that it is necessary to use these tools to innovate teaching methods and to facilitate learning. He finally discussed the importance of maintaining control of these tools, currently held by private entities and outside the European context. Otherwise, the risk is that they create a new digital divide. This is a fundamental point on which states, even in a dimension of European collaboration, must be able to intervene, considering GAI as a "common good".
Quattrociocchi took up this point about this technology as a common good, while reiterating the importance of ensuring and guaranteeing its reliability. These tools produce output similar to that of human beings, but humans have the capacity to verify their statements, whereas GAI is designed to optimize linguistic plausibility. The problem is that then, even driven by the commercial push of platforms, one jumps from this to the cognitive plane. This is already causing damage in universities, Quattrociocchi stated based on his personal experience, with students producing theses and projects that are beautifully written but which they do not truly understand. He concluded by noting that if GAI does not acquire solid reliability, it will not be able to ensure an economic return.
The conference ended with brief reflections from the other colleagues. Cerroni recalled that GAI should not be seen as a tool that allows one to shorten overall time, but rather to offload repetitive and mechanical activities, focusing on cognitively higher-level work. Orlandini emphasized the need to inform in a positive way, considering that these are very sophisticated tools that acquire new elements revealing new emergent behaviors that must be studied, but contextualized properly. Orlando observed that in the legal field, the interpretation of norms and their hermeneutics are subject to evolution that, however, GAI tools do not see because they always refer back to quantitatively prevailing interpretations which are, however, the oldest ones. From the perspective of legal culture, this is therefore a reactionary stance that severs the connection created between society and law, based precisely on the most modern interpretations.
I concluded by agreeing that these are fundamental instruments of consensus control, which requires that all researchers who have signed the open letter continue to work for the spread of better understanding of them in everyone's interest.
--The original version (in italian) has been published by "StartMAG" on 18 June 2026.
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