by Claudia Segre
THE BLOGGERS’ CORNER. Artificial intelligence has the potential to broaden access to knowledge, enhance healthcare, and promote inclusion. Yet it can also exacerbate inequality, enable manipulation, and strengthen surveillance. The defining challenge of our era is to determine what kind of society we wish to build through innovation.
03 giugno 2026 alle 15:59
For years, we have discussed artificial intelligence as an extraordinary technological innovation. Today, AI has become a new global cognitive infrastructure that, through social media, apps, and algorithmic development, can influence information and security, raising questions and concerns about the exercise of fundamental freedoms.
Recent weeks have demonstrated with particular clarity how AI is moving beyond the purely economic sphere of IPOs and market news to enter the geopolitical and strategic arena with growing force. The ongoing dispute between Elon Musk and Sam Altman offers valuable insights. It highlights the contradictions of an industry that has often sheltered behind the rhetoric of AI being “in the service of humanity.” Instead, far more concrete issues are emerging: concentration of power, control of infrastructure, access to data, computational capacity, and political influence. The real ethical question no longer concerns only what artificial intelligence is capable of doing, but also who controls its development, dissemination, and use.
From this perspective, the relationship between China and Iran represents a particularly significant case study. Numerous international reports have shown that advanced surveillance technologies, facial recognition systems, predictive analytics, and communication-monitoring tools are increasingly being used in authoritarian contexts to strengthen social control. Iran, particularly following the protests sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini, has progressively intensified the digital monitoring of its citizens. Human rights organizations and media outlets have documented repeated restrictions on internet access, resulting in months-long blackouts, as well as the use of digital technologies to identify protesters and anyone expressing dissent or seeking alternative digital connections. In this context, Chinese support—within a broader framework in which energy and digital cooperation form a unified front in bilateral relations—takes on a significance that extends far beyond simple “economic cooperation.” This is not merely a matter of trade or energy exchanges; it is also the continuation of experimentation with, and the export of, digital governance models based on pervasive citizen surveillance.
For this reason, the debate on AI ethics cannot be confined to algorithmic bias or the transparency of language models. It must also encompass the protection of human rights, freedom of expression, and democratic participation. Technology is never neutral. Every algorithm embodies objectives, priorities, and worldviews. When AI systems are used to identify and monitor individual behavior or restrict access to information, innovation ceases to be a tool of empowerment and risks becoming a tool of control.
Europe now faces a historic responsibility. The AI Act represents an initial attempt to establish governance based on the centrality of the individual, but it will not be sufficient unless accompanied by a broader reflection on the relationship between technology, freedom, and democracy. In the same light, Pope Leo XIV’s decision to establish a commission dedicated to artificial intelligence should be understood. This is not merely a technological issue. It concerns human dignity, freedom of choice, and the very meaning of individual autonomy in the digital age.
As Plato’s concept of the pharmakon teaches us, every technology is both remedy and poison. Artificial intelligence can expand access to knowledge, improve healthcare, accelerate scientific research, and foster inclusion. Yet it can also generate new forms of inequality, manipulation, and surveillance. The ethical challenge of our time, therefore, is not to choose between innovation and regulation. It is time to decide what kind of society we wish to build through innovation.
Because the real question is not whether artificial intelligence will become increasingly powerful. The real question is who will control that power, and according to which principles. If the twenty-first century is to be the century of global cognitive infrastructure, then the protection of fundamental freedoms must become an integral part of technological architecture—not as an afterthought, but as a foundational choice. It is on this terrain that the future of AI ethics will undoubtedly be decided.
To complete the picture, there is another aspect that too often remains on the margins of the debate on artificial intelligence: the relationship between AI and digital violence. Digital transformation has opened the door to new forms of coercive control that complement traditional ones. Today, an individual can monitor devices, access online accounts, track spending through financial applications, locate movements through smartphones, intercept communications, or use digital surveillance tools to gradually restrict a victim’s autonomy. We see this repeatedly in cases of femicide, but not only there.
Unregulated artificial intelligence inevitably amplifies these dynamics. Increasingly sophisticated algorithms make it possible to automate monitoring, profiling, and manipulation activities that only a few years ago required specialized expertise. The combination of data collection, predictive capabilities, and automation can transform technology into an instrument of invisible coercion. It is no coincidence that the Council of Europe, the Istanbul Convention, and more recent European initiatives such as Directive 1385/2024 on cyberviolence are progressively expanding their focus to include the digital dimensions of gender-based violence.
For this reason, AI ethics cannot be limited to issues of algorithmic transparency or the accountability of automated systems. The challenge before us is not merely the regulation of artificial intelligence. It concerns the ability of our societies to ensure that the technological revolution strengthens rights rather than weakening them, expands freedom rather than restricting it, and promotes autonomy rather than creating new forms of dependency.
In this sense, the fight against cyberviolence is neither a niche issue nor one exclusively linked to gender policies. It is one of the principal tests of the democratic quality of the digital ecosystem we are building. Because a society in which technology can be used to control individuals in their relationships, economic choices, and freedom of expression risks losing sight of the deepest meaning of innovation: to place progress at the service of the individual, rather than placing the individual at the service of progress.
