Tecnologia della rivoluzione. Progresso e battaglie sociali dal microonde all’intelligenza artificiale

Sara is a woman, a mother. She is unemployed, single, and an immigrant. Her identity is a layered one, singular and unrepeatable. These social characteristics will render her suspicious for the rest of her life. Because, to a mathematical model – and to her country’s government – Sara is only a set of markers that, added together, generate a high-risk score, a statistical prediction that transforms her into a potential criminal. But her only fault is that of being herself, and of sharing a similar profile to other people who existed and were accused before her. This and many other stories show us that a single number calculated by an algorithm can change the fate of entire social groups, risking a return to ancient injustices, amplified by the way in which we use these tools today. Retracing the history of technology, we can also
pass through the history of social exclusion: every invention, from the bicycle to the microwave, right up to artificial intelligence, is the result of precise choices, values and human compromises that cause strong impacts on society. Thanks to the rediscovery of many feminist contributions proposed during the seventies and noughties, Tecnologia della rivoluzione pushes us to reflect on how to intervene to ensure that technological revolutions don’t lead to social regressions.