di Francesco Unali
Europe has approved the world's first legal instrument laying the foundations for aorderly regulation, at the continental level, of theartificial intelligenceTo better understand the Union's decision, we spoke with Professor Giulio Iannello, Professor of Information Processing Systems and President of the Master's Degree Course in Intelligent Systems Engineering at theUniversità Campus Bio-Medico di Roma.
"First of all at the center of theAI Act there is the political agreement that the 27 countries of the Union have found – Iannello begins – on what artificial intelligence tools are and how they should be regulated in our lives"This is a significant achievement, and it will take another two years to become a fully enforceable legal instrument. These guidelines already allow those approaching artificial intelligence to adopt a clear approach that respects fundamental rights, such as the right to privacy in all its forms.
The AI Act starts from an approach linked to the prohibitions on high-risk activities: "It was decided to classify AI applications based on their risk levels, with respect to fundamental rights – explains Iannello – We therefore want to prevent the potential of AI from invading the sphere of our rights, entrusting technologies with responsibilities and tasks beyond the control we can exercise over them. If technologies risk becoming "too" important in our lives, it is important to keep our societies centered on people and not machines. On the one hand, we need to help people learn how to use technologies well, even the most recent ones; on the other, we need to wait until certain technologies are mature before using them on a large scale..
For technology to continue to liberate our lives we can no longer just rely on it, but know them deeply, know how to use them, monitor their functioning and their real effectiveness. "I believe that today most people need specific training to fill the gap in resources needed to properly manage these new technologies. - he concludes - Education that's not just about technology, but also about human development, to re-understand what's important to humans and what isn't. Only then will we be able to peacefully coexist with the potential of artificial intelligence."
