We need more human intelligence to combat the negative aspects of AI.

Who has written to the editor-in-chief, Claudio Cerasa

18 SEP 26

Translated by AI

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Photo by Nahrizul Kadri via Unsplash

To the Editor – In your opinion, Editor, which Italian local authority will be the first to confer honorary citizenship on the Israeli directors of the film “Naza’’, which tells the story of nights when – as is well known – all cows are black?

Giuliano Cazzola

I propose a swap: strip Albanese of his citizenship and grant it to ‘Naza’.

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To the Editor – Lucio Caracciolo’s mystical ‘Grammelot’ on the end of the American empire: “Perhaps the ‘pursuit of happiness’ enshrined by Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence (1776) was intended as an incentive to draw closer to the supreme utopia: the empire of the free Republic, or however else one might wish to blend the terms of this irreconcilable contradiction. The pursuit of the tortoise of identity is the national sport of the stars-and-stripes Achilles, called by the constitutional preamble to a ‘more perfect Union’ – unattainable by definition, yet demanding. Tantalus’s torment is particularly painful today in this colossus at the nadir of national pride and international prestige. And which, consequently, suffers the pangs of a rare emotion for that proud people in a catatonic depression: shame. An awareness of no longer being able to live up to its original mission – to remake the world from scratch. Indeed, a fear of ending up undone by it” (from the Introduction to the latest issue of Limes).

Michele Magno

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To the Editor – At 2:30 a.m., four powerful explosions a few hundred metres away jolted residents awake; with the lights strictly switched off to avoid becoming targets, they saw the night lit by fires where ballistic missiles had struck. Subsequent reports confirmed that Russian missiles had caused 12 civilian casualties. one realises what it means to live through a war, even in Kyiv, even in the capital. The front line is drawing nearer, but here in Italy we’re like ostriches with our heads in the sand, concerned only with getting there by 7 pm to have a spritz with friends and spouting nonsense from the stage at a party rally.

Carlo Ferrari

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To the editor – I read a rather good tweet: if Altman, Musk and Amodei want to find a way to slow things down using AI, they need look no further than Europe.

Luca Maffei

Europe’s AI computing power: 5 per cent. The United States’ AI computing power: 75 per cent. Further food for thought, for the non-doomsayers. A point from the WSJ: to counter AI errors, we need more human intelligence, not less. Because, says the WSJ, if AI makes mistakes or exhibits degenerative behaviour, it is because someone has programmed it poorly. And the more autonomy granted to AI, the more rigorous the oversight must be and the more rigorous the independent checks must be. More human intelligence against the degenerative tendencies of AI: to improve it, rather than taking steps backwards, perhaps we need to take steps forwards.

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To the Editor – The debate sparked by Giorgio Tonini’s article in Il Foglio on 14 September, entitled “Idee non negoziabili per un campo largo antipopulista”, brings a crucial issue back to the fore: the Italian left currently lacks both the theoretical framework and the political agent necessary to tackle the new global conflicts. In my view, in fact, even Kantian normativism – cited by Tonini – which interprets peace as the universal outcome of civilisation, no longer holds water in a world marked by revisionist powers and a geopolitical ‘gathering storm’ that heralds a fragmented Third World War. Peace is not a moral given, but a balance of power guaranteed by deterrence. I would add that, in this context, speaking of the ‘centre-left’ means evoking an actor that no longer exists. What exists, alas, is the broad coalition: an identitarian and populist grouping, devoid of the culture of governance that characterised reformism. Tonini’s analysis thus ends up presupposing a non-existent political counterpart: the centre-left; whilst the ‘broad coalition’ is incapable of devising a realistic strategy on war and peace. The crisis facing liberal democracies, on the other hand, calls for a new realism: recognising that the defence of the liberal order is the condition for peace, not its outcome. It also requires an autonomous reformist political force, capable of ‘shaking up’ the broad coalition, not merely correcting it. The threat to democracies today comes from without – the Russian war against Ukraine – and from within, with the advance of the European far right. The reformist tradition must therefore free itself from normative illusions and terminological nostalgia. Peace is not an abstract moral duty: it is a concrete political equilibrium. The task of reformists is to define – independently – the political and strategic forms needed to rebuild a reformist force capable of forming a credible centre-left, with a view to the 2027 general election, the 2029 presidential election and the 2032 general election.

Alberto Bianchi