In light of the real explosion of interest around ChatGPT and its derivatives, we wanted to understand how generative artificial intelligence is a tool in everyone’s hands, what threats it poses to rules and the rule of law.

We talked about it with Orestes Thumbolinoprofessor of constitutional law and media law atBocconi University and co-founder of advisory DigitaMediaLaws.

The questions opened by ChatGPT are many and it is better to start by researching the rules we already have, which allow us to understand whether the regulatory complex is adequate to deal with artificial intelligence or whether we need new rules.

ChatGPT and the Rules: Let’s Start with the Constitution

That’s why we asked Oreste Tom Thumb to start from the analysis of the Constitution, to see if our Charter already makes reference to the use of artificial intelligence, if we already have a regulatory containment network, aware that the subject of rules is broader and that in the digital world, the horizon to contemplate is the supranational.

And this reference, although artificial intelligence was not unpredictable by the founding fathers in the act of drafting the rules of Italian civil society, is called Article 21namely, the protection of freedom of expression”by any means of dissemination”, to protect the human person, his dignity, his respect.

We need to start from there if we want to think of new rules that can regulate the use we make and will make of tools like ChatGPT.

Another question is whether ChatGPT and generative AI are really including. And the answer is no: for Oreste Tom Thumbs, artificial intelligence is excluding, disintermediating, capable of first displacing and then collapsing intermediate communities.

To ensure that ChatGpt and artificial intelligence do not become «an engine of loneliness», for Tom Thumb new rules are needed and the creation of a generalized rule digital citizenshipwhere people are aware of their actions online.

It is known that the questions opened by artificial intelligence are many, fromethic at the privacyin health (“Health data is crucial for privacy, but also for research”, said the teacher), to discrimination.

And according to Tom Thumb there is a strong risk of a algorithmic discriminationbesides being there, palpable, the old question of workswith an artificial intelligence capable of generating exclusion and humiliation and here the rules to be followed are those that allow the protection of the human person.

the themes of democracycopyright, civil liability, surveillance, complete a set of rules that will have to be born, which you probably don’t think about when you approach ChatGPT to ask what comes to your mind.