Artificial intelligence, in the 'New World' work is no longer the focus

In an age where productivity is the unit of measure of success, we are used to measuring the value of a person by his or her work and remuneration. But the future may overturn this habit. Artificial intelligence will erase the intellectual work, after the technology of the past automated functions performed by physical activity. With the strengths of Ai - speed, impartiality and convenience - humans often cannot compete. We must therefore build a society in which work is not the only means of finding a purpose in life.

The perspective is convincingly indicated by entrepreneur Fabio De Felice, founder of Protom Group, and Roberto Race, consultant in corporate and reputation strategy, in the book written jointly by Il Mondo Nuovissimo (Luiss University Press), whose title directly paraphrases the great Aldous Huxley, father of all dystopian literature from the 20th century onwards. In the work, preceded by a preface by Monsignor Vincenzo Paglia, the authors engage in a series of dialogues on the impact of the digital revolution on various dimensions of human existence, concluding with the working sphere. With theses that echo Jeremy Rifkin's thinking, updated to the Ai era.

But before that, De Felice and Race warn us about phenomena that are already taking place, of which there is little perception in the West, such as digital colonialism, based on masses of young intellectuals from the poorest parts of the world willing to tag for pennies the billions of data needed to allow Ai to function. Because technology, in itself, is not good or bad, but in the hands of a few global holdings it becomes a tool to exponentially multiply inequalities, to censor and manipulate information, enslave freedom of thought, and precisely cut the cost of employees and collaborators. Among the testimonies collected, those of Maximo Ibarra, ceo of Engineering, Stefano Rebattoni, president of Ibm Italia, Valentino Confalone, country president of Novartis, and Pierroberto Folgiero, CEO of Fincantieri

The New World goes beyond the labour issue to highlight the effects on love and cinema, figurative arts and circular economy, democratic institutions and growing authoritarianism. All this without having pre-written recipes in their pockets, but proposing the need for an ethics of Ai that prevents its inhuman use. A path that could ensure that the new dystopias waved by many - nuclear catastrophes, climate change, pandemics, depletion of food, water and vital raw materials - remain literature. And that the Terminator scenario continues to be the stuff of films.

Fabio De Felice, Roberto Race
"The New World. Dialogues on ethics and artificial intelligence"
Luiss University Press, Euro 16, pp. 172