Pierluigi is a freelance journalist and editor. He covers social issues in Mediterranean countries. He’s one of the co-authors of Bagliore (Il Saggiatore, 2020) and editor at The Syllabus, a knowledge curation platform, and Alea, an independent anthropology magazine. With a background in computer science, he has always been interested in the social implications of automated systems, especially those that impact and harm the rights of migrants, minorities, and the poorest.
KeyCrime was a first of its kind, a company dedicated to using Artificial Intelligence to identify recurring patterns in serial crime. The European Union’s AI Act, however, dealt the project a mortal blow. But the idea lives on.
The neofascist government led by Brothers of Italy passed a law that encourages public institutions to entirely automate procurements, from the definition of needs to the selection of winning bids. The consequences are uncertain as such systems have yet to be implemented, but small communities will most definitely lose power and opacity will reign.
An algorithm was supposed to save time by allocating teachers on short-term contracts to schools automatically. Failures in the code and in the design severely disrupted teachers’ lives.