The Intelligences of the Architect

In recent years, the debate on artificial intelligence has been focused on ethical issues, especially in relation to the management of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Even though the potential benefits of AI applied to all processes – including governance – are not fully evident, the attention is focused on the pernicious aspects, linked to unexpected or unwanted results. This approach, called by some “the dark side of AI” (Valle-Cruz et al., 2023), refers to an obscurantism inherent in the human nature. Little seems to have changed since 1779, when the young worker Ned Ludd, who probably never existed, destroyed a power loom as a protest against the machines guilty of stealing man’s job, giving rise to Luddism. The idea that the process and procedure innovation engenders unemployment was formalized by Keynes almost a century ago: the economist coined the term “technological unemployment”, recognizing its inevitability, but considering it a condition to adapt to.