On the one hand AI is hailed as a driver of unprecedented progress, with the potential to alleviate poverty, expand access to education, and improve healthcare outcomes, and on the other, critics highlight risks such as bias, surveillance, erosion of accountability, and even the possibility of autonomous systems escaping human control. Some argue that current AI systems are far less “intelligent” than the label suggests, lacking consciousness or intentionality, and are therefore better understood as powerful but limited tools. Others emphasize the dangers of delegating critical decisions to opaque algorithms, especially in domains such as justice, warfare, or mental health. These divergent perspectives point to a shared recognition: AI cannot be addressed solely as a technical matter but must be evaluated within moral, legal, and political frameworks.
In this sense, the key questions are normative: What duties and responsibilities should guide the creation and deployment of AI systems? How can risks such as discrimination, loss of privacy, or democratic erosion be mitigated? And what forms of governance are required to ensure accountability? This book takes up these challenges by examining AI through an interdisciplinary lens, highlighting its promises, its dangers, and the ethical, legal, and political structures necessary to use it responsibly.
This book examines AI not merely as a technical innovation but as a moral, legal, and political challenge. Through an interdisciplinary lens, it explores how we might harness AI’s potential while confronting its risks, asking what values, duties, and governance structures should guide its responsible development and deployment.
Preface. Introduction. PART I.
1. The Technology of AI and its Emerging
Worries.
2. Ethics of AI and Ethical AI: Moral Worries.
3. Identity
Protection and AI: Legal and Political Worries. PART II.
4. Digital
Constitutionalism: A Counter-Narrative to the Challenges of AI and Digital
Marginalization.
5. Opacity, Accountability, and Normativity: Toward a Right
to Explanation or Justification?
6. AI and Mental Health: Uses, Misuses,
Opportunities, and Concerns.
Jacopo Morelli received his PhD in Philosophy from the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia under Carla Bagnoli supervision, with a thesis titled Moral and Political Constructivism in the Human Rights Debate. He holds a BA from the University of Macerata and an MA from the University of Parma, with visiting periods at Goethe University, Sciences Po, Paris Cité, and University College Dublin.
Daniel Piñeiro Rodriguez, PhD and LL.M. in Law, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUC-RS), Brazil.Federal Attorney, Office of the Attorney General of the Union (Advocacia-Geral da União AGU), Brazil.
Francesco Barzetta is a PhD student at the University of Klagenfurt, Austria, where he focuses on the concept of wisdom. Despite his background in Psychology, he cultivated IT knowledge to support his research work.
