Intelligenza artificiale e scienze neuro-cognitive nel diritto: dalla simbiosi alla sostituzione Artificial Intelligence and Neuro-cognitive Sciences in Law: From Symbiosis to Substitution

Since the term “artificial intelligence” (or simply AI) was coined at Dartmouth College in 1956, the theoretical assumptions of the discipline that deal with it have not changed. It is no coincidence that technical developments of AI, such as “machine learning” and “deep learning,” originate precisely from the debate that arose in the 1960s and 1980s. The results of those studies are still the basis of recent research and applications in AI, up to the recent general-purpose systems that, combined with different techniques, evoke the danger of an imminent substitution of humans by artificial intelligence. The digital revolution has operated silently, expanding application scenarios and shaping social reality itself, thanks to the growing informational power deriving from the correlation of large masses of data and the corresponding metadata. With the radical modification of reality, legal experience also changes, while the philosophy and the jurisprudence can only do something other than rethink, a posteriori, new dogmatic categories able to understand its consequences. After all, if artificial intelligence and related technologies bring many advantages, they also have many risks, particularly from the perspective of rights. For this reason, this special issue intends to solicit a philosophical and legal reflection of a multidisciplinary nature which, towards a symbiotic vision of human-machine interaction, is particularly attentive to reaffirm the protection of the person (and his/her rights). In addition to the introductory section, the reader is offered multiple lines of interpretation, that, without betraying the common fil rouge that runs through the entire work, range from the theoretical to the eminently practical approach, without failing to touch on mathematical, logical, sociological and psychological questions.