On Tuesday 26 July 2022, the presentation of the book “L’algoritmo d’oro e la torre di Babele” (Baldini+Castoldi ed.) by Giovanni Maria Flick (President Emeritus of the Constitutional Court) and Caterina Flick (Advisor at the Agency for Digital Italy) was held at Palazzo Borromeo.
Introduced by the greetings of Ambassador Francesco Di Nitto and moderated by the journalist of the Dicastery for the Communication of the Holy See Fausta Speranza, the event saw the participation of Marta Cartabia (Minister of Justice) and Father Paolo Benanti (Professor at the Pontifical Gregorian University).
The reflection was focused on the theme of digital transition and the analysis of its potential and its risks, especially regarding the society and the value system.
The Minister Cartabia pointed out in her speech the consequences of these changes in the fields of justice administration and public debate, highlighting the many positive aspects – greater efficiency of justice, reduced impact on the environment, improved accessibility to documents – and observing, at the same time, some critical factors which are also underlined in the book: among these, the loss of the interpersonal relationship and therefore of the “human dimension” of technology.
The debate also focused on the ethics of technology and digital world: Father Benanti highlighted the need to intervene in the decision-making process that guides the actions of technological devices, thus developing an “ethics of algorithms”.
The importance of acting in an ethical way is also reflected in the use of social networks, in which, as pointed out by the Avv. Caterina Flick, the spread of fake news and hate speech is common. In response to the difficulty of regulating the debate on the Internet, Minister Cartabia suggested a series of solutions such as: greater investment in critical thinking education and accountability of social platforms and communication professionals in their fact-checking role, therefore in combating the phenomenon of fake news.
To watch the Facebook live video click here.
