Meloni's own goals on AI and innovation

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There is an important law that the government majority is dealing with that has not found the right space in the newspapers in recent months. The law concerns a topic that we are fond of, namely artificial intelligence. It concerns the attempt to introduce a national regulation around this topic, “to mitigate risks and seize opportunities”. And it concerns more generally the will, on the part of the government, to define a strong, right-wing identity, when it comes to technology and when it comes to AI. The government has chosen to move forward with the work by implementing as soon as possible the so-called European “AI act” , the same one that Trump wants to demolish, the same one that yesterday forty-four European CEOs asked to review, as it would be self-destructive for “Europe's ambitions in terms of artificial intelligence”, since these rules “compromise not only the development of European champions, but also the ability of all sectors to implement artificial intelligence on a large scale as required by global competition”. At first glance, therefore, one might believe that moving forward with a law on AI despite what Trump says is an act of courage on the part of Italy. But it is enough to read the text of the law to get a different idea. In what sense? We'll get there.

When the bill was submitted to the Senate on June 27, the Palazzo Madama research office provided a fact sheet to try to better frame the main points in this law. It is one hundred and forty-one dense pages, and within the text the most recurring words are these. The word “risk” is used one hundred and thirty times. And other words are used approximately three hundred times: “Illicit”, “crime”, “violation”, “manipulation”, “abuse”, “damage”, “punishment”, “sanction”, “prohibition”. The list of these words is not random, but is the perfect, and disheartening, reflection with which the Italian government has chosen to take on one of the most important challenges of our contemporary era: how to transform artificial intelligence into an engine capable of enhancing not only natural intelligence but also the attractiveness of a country. And instead of grasping the centrality of this challenge, instead of making a creative effort to put artificial intelligence at the service of natural intelligence, the government has chosen to address the issue using a now recurring lever: that of repression. In the bill there is only one article dedicated to investments, competitiveness, and the attraction of foreign capital, and it is number twenty-three. The government, with great fanfare, in this article, promises to allocate existing resources, delegates the management of those existing resources, about one billion euros, to an entity that had already been delegated to manage them, Cdp Venture Capital. It adds to those resources 300 thousand euros per year for two years (2025 and 2026) for “experimental” projects of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (in France, in addition to the billion and a half allocated by the government, 109 billion have been allocated by private individuals, coordinated by the government, for AI infrastructures and data centers, while in Germany the allocated billions are 11, between 5 billion in public investments and 6 additional billion from the private sector).

And in addition to this, the law does not dedicate a single line to issues that are instead present in the initiatives on the same topic carried out by many European partners. No specific tax incentives for startups that deal with artificial intelligence, no tax credits for investments in generative models, no simplifications for those who want to test new products in Italy. What is instead found massively within the AI ​​bill concerns the Luddite and repressive tic of the government that in perfect harmony with the European Union, faced with the choice between betting on its own ability to innovate or regulating the innovations of others, has chosen the second path. The pattern is always the same. New crimes are created, penalties are increased, new types of crime are introduced by punishing what was already punished and making the penalties for existing crimes more severe . For example, the “illegal dissemination of false content (Art. 612-quater)” is introduced even though there were already laws that punished aggravated defamation, cyberbullying, revenge porn. An aggravating circumstance is added to stock market manipulation and stock market manipulation, even though these crimes were already punished. As if that were not enough, types of crime are introduced that are so vague as to give prosecutors the ability to use the new tools for fighting crime at their own discretion (what exactly is meant when it is said that “anyone who causes unjust damage by disseminating [...] falsified or altered images, videos or voices capable of inducing deception” will be punished, does this only apply to deepfakes or does it also apply to comedians?). And as if that were not enough, still, rather than facilitating small and medium-sized businesses to invest in AI, the law introduces new constraints, new procedures, new standards of transparency and traceability on the development of artificial intelligence, with the risk, probably calculated, of distancing companies from AI, therefore from innovation, therefore from the future . The story we have told you concerns artificial intelligence, of course, but it concerns a bigger problem that Italy, the Melonian one and not only, has to deal with when it finds itself talking about innovation. Instinct is not to promote, but to prohibit. Instinct is not to invest, but to regulate. Instinct is not to bet on the future, but to side with those who fear the future. Natural intelligence is the tip, Italy is the rest of the iceberg. Change is possible. If necessary, artificial intelligence, in the absence of natural intelligence, can even help to understand how to do it. All it takes is one click.

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