The ethics of artificial intelligence as a bridge between Italy and the world: the story of Simona Tiribelli
From the province of Pesaro to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a journey made without ever losing touch with the land of origin
He teaches in Italy, does research in Massachusetts, consults in half of Europe. He follows his intellectual passion. And he contributes to innovations with a perceived ethical direction. He started down this path as early as university, because he did not think of it as a set of exams to be passed, but saw it as an opportunity to research, to make sense of his life. In one of his books, he begins by asking: "What does it mean and imply to be a person in contemporary algorithmic societies? Do the algorithms that permeate today's hyper-connected environments affect the processes of shaping our personal identity?" Certainly, those questions have influenced the personal identity of the author, Simona Tiribelli.
Perhaps it all started in his house in Lunano, a village in the province of Pesaro Urbino, Montefeltro. She had just passed her high school graduation exam. She was oriented to pursue her studies with a scientific degree, but was also interested in philosophy because she appreciated the clarity of the categories that that subject taught to interpret reality. That evening, her father showed her the poster for the 'Giacomo Leopardi' School of Advanced Studies at the University of Macerata. It promised an educational path made of commitment, interdisciplinarity, international experience. It was these that struck her. And among them she noticed a summer course in applied ethics in Leuven. She applied and was admitted.
It was precisely the international experiences that gave her the decisive push. To hear her talk about her university years, one feels the enthusiasm of someone who has found her way through a course of study that immediately became research. She delved into the ethical problems posed by technologies. He devoured scientific papers. He did an experience in Amsterdam trying to understand how the fundamental ethical answers adapted to the complexity of reality. He focused on digital development trajectories. She applied for a doctorate when she had not yet graduated. The title of the research project was on freedom of choice in the age of algorithms. It was 2016, the year when everyone was talking about fake news. "But those were the tip of the iceberg," she sensed. He felt he should rather look for the roots of the phenomenon, investigating around the consequences of algorithms.
The doctorate required at least twelve months abroad. He went to Paris. But he dreamed of the MediaLab, the mythical research centre of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology founded by Nicholas Negroponte. Overcoming all shyness, he sent a letter to the then director Joi Ito, a visionary entrepreneur, thinking he would never hear back. Instead, he received an invitation to go and study at MediaLab. He made the immense effort to fill out the huge application for a Fulbright grant. He won it. And off he went.
Today Simona Tiribelli, at 32, is the director of a research and innovation centre for policy and public health founded at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology specialising in the ethics of technology and artificial intelligence. And she is a lecturer at the University of Macerata. He is a consultant to the European Commission. She collaborates with the World Health Organisation. She is co-founder of an innovative university spinoff startup called GAIA that deals with ethical-legal assessments for artificial intelligence solutions. She has written 40 scientific papers. And she is working on the ethics of artificial intelligence with quantum computing for a national research project funded by the Ministry for Universities and Research.
