December 2025 - nexa - server-nexa.polito.it

[Responsible AI] The Systemic Risks of Mismatched Uncertainty, Sylvie Delacroix, King's College

by Daniele Quercia

Format: 35 min talk + 25 min Q&A The Systemic Risks of Mismatched Uncertainty: Why Professional AI Needs More Than Better Calibration Join the meeting<https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3ameeting_NzY3NmJlZjYtZjdiOS00…> AI systems deployed in healthcare, education, and law face a critical challenge: many forms of professional uncertainty resist the probabilistic quantification that current systems privilege. A physician pondering whether to document suspected domestic abuse faces uncertainties about appropriate inquiry, patient safety risks, and trauma-informed care that cannot meaningfully be reduced to confidence scores. When diagnostic systems express high algorithmic confidence while failing to communicate these contextual uncertainties, the resulting mismatch between expressed and actual uncertainty creates cascading systemic risks. This talk examines why technical improvements in uncertainty quantification (while valuable) cannot address the fundamental epistemological mismatch between algorithmic confidence and professional judgment. Drawing on my recent analysis of healthcare and judicial contexts, I show how this mismatch risks eroding professionals' capacity to refine the tacit, experience-based judgment that distinguishes expert from novice performance: precisely the forms of situated knowing that depend on engaging with uncertainty rather than resolving it prematurely. The solution requires shifting from designer-centric to genuinely participatory approaches: building technical architectures that enable professional communities to iteratively refine how systems communicate uncertainty, treating uncertainty expression itself as evolving professional knowledge rather than a fixed algorithmic problem. Further reading: 1. Delacroix, S., Robinson, D., Bhatt, U., Domenicucci, J., Montgomery, J., Varoquaux, G., Ek, C.H., Fortuin, V., He, Y., Diethe, T. and Campbell, N., 2025. ‘Beyond Quantification: Navigating Uncertainty in Professional AI Systems’, RSS: Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, 1(1), p.udaf002. 2. Delacroix, S., 2025. 'Designing with uncertainty: LLM interfaces as transitional spaces for democratic revival'. Minds and Machines, 35(4), p.41. 3. Delacroix, S., 2025. ‘Moral Perception and Uncertainty Expression in LLM-Augmented Judicial Practice’, Minds and Machines, 35 (44) 4. Fraile Navarro, D., Lewis, M., Blease, C., Shah, R., Riggare, S., Delacroix, S., Lehman, R., 2025. 'GenAI and the changing dynamics of clinical consultations', British Medical Journal, 391:e085325 Sylvie Delacroix’s work focuses on data & machine ethics. She is the Inaugural Jeff Price Chair in Digital Law at King's College London; and also the founding Director of the Centre for Data Futures and a visiting professor at the Centre for Language AI research at Tohoku University (Japan). Her work has always been animated by a commitment to bridge the gap between theory and practice. This has led to launch or be involved in a variety of ethics and public policy initiatives. She is currently working on agency-enhancing uncertainty communication features for LLMs deployed in morally loaded contexts. She is also considering the social sustainability of the data ecosystem that makes generative AI possible. Subscribe to future talk announcements: Anyone outside Bell Labs can receive talk announcements by subscribing to the mailing list. To subscribe, send an empty email with the subject line "Subscribe RAI” to daniele.quercia(a)polito.it

Dec. 9, 2025

Re: [nexa] [Possible phishing attempt] Account mobilizon di Centro Nexa e ActivityPub

by B. J.

Interessante, a me l'url https://mobilizon.it/@centro_nexa_su_internet_societa dice "No group found" sabato 6 dicembre 2025 17:43, Roberto Resoli <roberto(a)resolutions.it> ha scritto: > This email failed anti-phishing checks when it was received by SimpleLogin, be careful with its content. > More info on https://simplelogin.io/docs/getting-started/anti-phishing/ > > ------------------------------ > Salve, > Noto con molto piacere che Centro Nexa ha iniziato ad usare il servizio Mobilizon (istanza mobilizon.it) per divulgare eventi. > > È un sw libero eccellente, sviluppato dalla benemerita associazione francese Framasoft. > > Trattandosi di un sistema federato con il protocollo ActivityPub le sue utenze dovrebbero essere visibili dal Fediverso, rendendo immediato pubblicizzare lí gli eventi. > > Questo non accade (nella mia esperienza) con l'utenza: > @centro_nexa_su_internet_societa@mobilizon.it > > https://mobilizon.it/@centro_nexa_su_internet_societa > > Riesco a visualizzarla, ma non a vedere gli eventi, né a seguirla. É un vero peccato, perché ho fatto lo stesso per la mia associazione: > > @linuxtrent@mobilizon.it > https://mobilizon.it/@linuxtrent > > E ha funzionato bene. > > rob

Dec. 9, 2025

Letture tra teologia - filosofia e tecnologia

by don Luca Peyron

Alcuni articoli che spero possano essere interessanti. Buona lettura dl https://www.archivioteologicotorinese.it/ojs/index.php/att/issue/view/7374 _________________________ don Luca Peyron Pastorale della Cultura tecno scientifica - Apostolato Digitale Arcidiocesi di Torino apostolatodigitale.it <https://www.apostolatodigitale.it/>

Dec. 9, 2025

‘Don’t pander to the tech giants!’ How a youth movement for digital justice is spreading across Europe

by Alberto Cammozzo

<https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/dec/09/youth-movement-digital-justic…> ‘Don’t pander to the tech giants!’ How a youth movement for digital justice is spreading across Europe Late one night in April 2020, towards the start of the Covid lockdowns, Shanley Clémot McLaren was scrolling on her phone when she noticed a Snapchat post by her 16-year-old sister. “She’s basically filming herself from her bed, and she’s like: ‘Guys you shouldn’t be doing this. These fisha accounts are really not OK. Girls, please protect yourselves.’ And I’m like: ‘What is fisha?’ I was 21, but I felt old,” she says. She went into her sister’s bedroom, where her sibling showed her a Snapchat account named “fisha” plus the code of their Paris suburb. Fisha is French slang for publicly shaming someone – from the verb “afficher”, meaning to display or make public. The account contained intimate images of girls from her sister’s school and dozens of others, “along with the personal data of the victims – their names, phone numbers, addresses, everything to find them, everything to put them in danger”. McLaren, her sister and their friends reported the account to Snapchat dozens of times, but received no response. Then they discovered there were fisha accounts for different suburbs, towns and cities across France and beyond. Faced with the impunity of the social media platforms, and their lack of moderation, they launched the hashtag #StopFisha. It went viral, online and in the media. #StopFisha became a rallying cry, a safe space to share information and advice, a protest movement. Now it was the social media companies being shamed. “The wave became a counter-wave,” says McLaren, who is now 26. The French government got involved, and launched an online campaign on the dangers and legal consequences of fisha accounts. The social media companies began to moderate at last, and #StopFisha is now a “trusted flagger” with Snapchat and TikTok, so when they report fisha content, it is taken down within hours. “I realised that if you want change in your societies, if you come with your idea alone, it won’t work. You need support behind you.” Four years later, this strategy is playing out on an even larger scale. McLaren and other young activists across Europe are banding together against social media and its ruinous effects on their generation. Individually, young people are powerless to sway big tech, but they are also a substantial part of its business model – so, collectively, they are powerful. This is the first generation to have grown up with social media: they were the earliest adopters of it, and therefore the first to suffer its harms. The array of problems is ever-expanding: misogynistic, hateful and disturbing content; addictive and skewed algorithms; invasion of privacy; online forums encouraging harmful behaviours; sextortion; screen addiction; deepfake pornography; misinformation and disinformation; radicalisation; surveillance; biased AI – the list goes on. As the use of social media has risen, there has been a corresponding increase in youth mental health problems, anxiety, depression, self-harm and even suicide. “Across Europe, a generation is suffering through a silent crisis,” says a new report from People vs Big Tech – a coalition of more than 140 digital rights NGOs from around Europe – and Ctrl+Alt+Reclaim, their youth-led spin-off. A big factor is “the design and dominance of social media platforms”. Ctrl+Alt+Reclaim, for people aged 15 to 29, came about in September last year when People vs Big Tech put out a call – on social media, paradoxically. About 20 young people who were already active on these issues came together at a “boot camp” in London. “We were really given the tools to create the movement that we wanted to build,” says McLaren, who attended with her partner. “They booked a big room, they brought the food, pencils, paper, everything we needed. And they were like: ‘This is your space, and we’re here to help.’” The group is Europe’s first digital justice movement by and for young people. Their demands are very simple, or at least they ought to be: inclusion of young people in decision-making; a safer, healthier, more equitable social media environment; control and transparency over personal data and how it is used; and an end to the stranglehold a handful of US-based corporations have over social media and online spaces. The overarching principle is: “Nothing for us, without us.” “This is not just us being angry; it’s us having the right to speak,” says McLaren, who is now a youth mobilisation lead for Ctrl+Alt+Reclaim. Debates over digital rights are already going on, of course, but, she says: “We find it really unfair that we’re not at the table. Young people have so much to say, and they’re real experts, because they have lived experience … So why aren’t they given the proper space?” McLaren’s work with #StopFisha took her on a journey into a wider, murkier world of gender-based digital rights: misogynist trolling and sexism, cyberstalking, deepfake pornography – but she realised this was just one facet of the problem. What women were experiencing online, other groups were experiencing in their own ways. A fellow activist, Yassine, 23, is well aware of this. Originally from north Africa and now living in Germany, Yassine identifies as non-binary. They fled to Europe to escape intolerance in their own country, but the reality of life, even in a supposedly liberal country such as Germany, hit them like a “slap”, they say. “You’re here for your safety, but then you’re trying to fight not only the system that is punishing the queerness of you, but you also have another layer of being a migrant. So you have two battles instead of one.” As a migrant they are seen as a threat, Yassine says. “Our bodies and movements must be tracked, fingerprinted and surveilled through intrusive digital systems designed to protect the EU.” For queer people, there are similar challenges. These include “shadow-banning”, for example, by which tech platforms “silence conversations about queer rights, racism or anything that is challenging the dominant system”, either wilfully or algorithmically, through built-in biases. Measures such as identity verification “are also putting a lot of people at risk of being erased from these spaces”, says Yassine. There can be good reasons for them, but they can also end up discriminating against non-binary or transgender people – who are often presented with binary gender options; male or female – as well as against refugees and undocumented people, who may be afraid or unable to submit their details online. Given their often tenuous residency status, and sometimes limited digital literacy and access, migrants tend not to speak out, Yassine says. “It definitely feels like you are in a position of: ‘You need to be grateful that you are here, and you should not question the laws.’ But the laws are harming my data.” On a more day-to-day level, Yassine says, they must “walk through online spaces knowing they could do harm to me”. If they click on the comments under a social media post, for example, they know they are likely to find racist, homophobic or hateful attacks. Like McLaren, Yassine says that complaining is futile. “I know that they will come back with, ‘This is not a community guidelines breach’, and all of that.” These are not mere glitches in the system, says Yassine, who now leads on digital rights at IGLYO, a long-running LGBTQ+ youth rights organisation, founded in Brussels, with a network of groups across Europe. “The systems we design inherit the very structures they arise from, so they inevitably become systems that are patriarchal and racist by design.” Adele Zeynep Walton’s participation in Ctrl+Alt+Reclaim came through personal experience of online harm. In 2022, Walton’s 21-year-old sister, Aimee, took her own life. She had been struggling with her mental health, but had also been spending time on online suicide and self-harm forums, which Walton believes contributed to her death. After that, Walton began to question the digital realm she had grown up in, and her own screen addiction. Walton’s parents made her first Facebook account when she was 10, she says. She has been on Instagram since she was 12. Her own feelings of body dysmorphia began when she was 13, sparked by pro-anorexia content her friends were sharing. “I became a consumer of that, then I got immersed in this world,” she says. “Generations like mine thought it was totally normal, having this everyday battle with this addictive thing, having this constant need for external validation. I thought those were things that were just wrong with me.” In researching her book Logging Off: The Human Cost of our Digital World, Walton, 26, also became aware of how little control young people have over the content that is algorithmically served up to them. “We don’t really have any choice over what our feeds look like. Despite the fact there are things where you can say, ‘I don’t want to see this type of content’, within a week, you’re still seeing it again.” Alycia Colijn, 29, another member of Ctrl+Alt+Reclaim, knows something about this. She studied data science and marketing analytics at university in Rotterdam, researching AI-driven algorithms – how they can be used to manipulate behaviour, and in whose interests. During her studies she began to think: “It’s weird that I’m trained to gather as much data as I can, and to build a model that can respond to or predict what people want to buy, but I’ve never had a conversation around ethics.” Now she is researching these issues as co-founder of Encode Europe, which advocates for human-centric AI. “I realised how much power these algorithms have over us; over our society, but also over our democracies,” she says. “Can we still speak of free will if the best psychologists in the world are building algorithms that make us addicted?” The more she learned, the more concerned Colijn became. “We made social media into a social experiment,” she says. “It turned out to be the place where you could best gather personal data from individuals. Data turned into the new gold, and then tech bros became some of the most powerful people in the world, even though they aren’t necessarily known for caring about society.” Social media companies have had ample opportunities to respond to these myriad harms, but invariably they have chosen not to. Just as McLaren found with Snapchat and the fisha accounts, hateful and racist content is still minimally moderated on platforms such as X, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube. After Donald Trump’s re-election, Mark Zuckerberg stated at the start of this year that Meta would be reducing factcheckers across Facebook and Instagram, just as X has under Elon Musk. This has facilitated the free flow of misinformation. Meta, Amazon and Google were also among the companies announcing they were rolling back their diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, post-Trump’s election. The shift towards the right politically, in the US and Europe, has inevitably affected these platforms’ tolerance of hateful and racist content, says Yassine. “People feel like now they have more rights to be harmful than rights to be protected.” All the while, the tech CEOs have become more powerful, economically, politically and in terms of information control. “We don’t believe that power should be in those hands,” says Colijn. “That’s not a true democracy.” Europe’s politicians aren’t doing much better. Having drafted the Digital Services Act in 2023, which threatened social media companies with fines or bans if they failed to regulate harmful content, the European Commission announced last month it would be rolling back some of its data privacy laws, to allow big tech companies to use people’s personal data for training AI systems. “Big tech, combined with the AI innovators, say they are the growth of tomorrow’s economy, and that we have to trust them. I don’t think that’s true,” says Colijn. She also disagrees with their argument that regulation harms innovation. “The only thing deregulation fosters is harmful innovation. If we want responsible innovation, we need regulation in place.” Walton agrees. “Governments and MPs are shooting themselves in the foot by pandering to tech giants, because that just tells young people that they don’t care about our future,” she says. “There’s this massive knowledge gap between the people who are making the decisions, and the tech justice movement and everyday people who are experiencing the harms.” Ctrl+Alt+Reclaim is not calling for the wholesale destruction of social media. All these activists say they have found community, solidarity and joy in online spaces: “We’re fighting for these spaces to accommodate us,” says Yassine. “We’re not protesting to cancel them. We know how harmful they are, but they are still spaces where we have hope.” Colijn echoes this. “Social media used to be a fun place with the promise of connecting the world,” she says. “That’s where we started.” And that’s what they want it to be again. Will big tech pay attention? They might not have a choice, as countries and legislators begin to take action. This week Australia will become the first country to ban social media accounts for under-16s on major platforms including Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok and X. Last week, after a two-year deliberation, X was fined €120m (£105m) by the EU for breaching data laws. But these companies continue to platform content that is hateful, racist, harmful, misleading or inflammatory, with impunity. Meanwhile, Ctrl+Alt+Reclaim is just getting started. Other discussions on the table include campaigning for an EU-funded social media platform, an alternative to the big tech oligopoly, created by and for the public. Another alternative is direct action, either protest or consumer activism such as coordinated boycotts. “I think it’s lazy for us to be like: we don’t have any power,” says Walton. “Because we could literally say that about anything: fast fashion, fossil fuels … OK, but how do we change things?” The other alternative is simply to log off. “The other side of the coin to this movement of tech justice, and a sort of liberation from the harms that we’ve experienced over the past 20 years, is reducing our screen time,” says Walton. “It is spending more time in community. It is connecting with people who maybe you would have never spoken to on social media, because you’d be in different echo chambers.” Almost all the activists in Ctrl+Alt+Reclaim attest to having had some form of screen addiction. As much as social media has brought them together, it has also led to much less face-to-face socialising. “I’ve had to sort of rewire my brain to get used to the awkwardness and get comfortable with being in a social setting and not knowing anyone,” says Walton. “Actually, it would be really nice to return to proper connection.”

Dec. 9, 2025

Israeli surveillance targets US and allies at joint base planning Gaza aid and security, say sources

by Daniela Tafani

Israeli operatives are conducting widespread surveillance of US forces and allies stationed at a new US base in the country’s south, according to sources briefed on disputes about open and covert recordings of meetings and discussions. The scale of intelligence gathering at the Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC) prompted the US commander of the base, Lt Gen Patrick Frank, to summon an Israeli counterpart for a meeting to tell him that “recording has to stop here”. Continua qui: <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/dec/08/israel-mass-surveillance-us-b…>

Dec. 8, 2025

Democrazia in tempo di guerra. Disciplinare la cultura e la scienza, censurare l'informazione

by antonio

C'era una data. C'erano due nomi pesanti come macigni della coscienza critica italiana: Alessandro Barbero e Angelo D'Orsi. C'era un titolo: "Democrazia in tempo di guerra. Disciplinare la cultura e la scienza, censurare l'informazione". Ora non c'è più niente. L'evento previsto per domani, 9 dicembre 2025 al Teatro Grande Valdocco di Torino è stato cancellato per revoca della concessione della sala. Una decisione comunicata dall'alto, secca, asettica. Ma che ha un odore preciso, inconfondibile: puzza di censura. Chi prova a raccontarla come una "questione organizzativa" prende in giro l'intelligenza delle persone. Qui non salta un concerto per un problema all'impianto elettrico. Qui viene tolta una sala a un evento che parlava di censura, guerra, propaganda, libertà di informazione. La coincidenza è così grossa da diventare una confessione. ... Torino non è una città qualunque. È città operaia, partigiana, universitaria, critica. È città di ANPI, di memoria, di lotte civili. Ed è proprio per questo che questa cancellazione pesa doppio. Perché è uno strappo simbolico. La storia insegna una cosa semplice: la censura non inizia mai con un boato. Inizia con una sala negata. Oggi tocca a due storici. Domani a un giornalista. Dopodomani a un insegnante. Poi, quando il silenzio sarà diventato abitudine, toccherà a tutti. https://wordnews.it/2025/12/08/democrazia-in-tempo-di-guerra-a-torino-salta… A.

Dec. 8, 2025

Île-de-France offers 550000 students and staff a sovereign cloud collaboration platform

by J.C. DE MARTIN

*Île-de-France offers 550000 students and staff a sovereign cloud collaboration platform* A trusted digital environment for education and public service In an ambitious digital transformation project, Île-de-France chose Nextcloud partner Leviia to implement Nextcloud as sovereign collaborative suite within the regional platform monlycée.net <https://monlycee.net/>. This initiative connects over 550.000 students, teachers, and administrative staff across hundreds of high schools. In essence, they benefit from a secure, privacy-respecting environment for learning, collaboration and file exchange. The project also puts into the spotlight the region’s, commitment to digital sovereignty, GDPR compliance, and independence from non-European cloud providers. [...] continua qui: https://nextcloud.com/blog/ile-de-france-sovereign-cloud-collaboration-plat…

Dec. 8, 2025

MEMENTO | 189° Mercoledì di Nexa | 10 dicembre 2025, ore 17.00

by Nexa - Media

Gentilissime, gentilissimi, Vi ricordiamo che mercoledì 10 dicembre, alle ore 17.00, si terrà il 189° Mercoledì di Nexa con un incontro dal titolo "Tech Workers e sindacato: un’analisi ecosistemica". Ospite dell'incontro: Simone Robutti (Tech Workers Coalition, Reversing.works). L'incontro si terrà IN PRESENZA e ONLINE. SEDE FISICA dell'incontro: Centro Nexa su Internet e Società, Politecnico di Torino, Via Boggio 65/a, Torino (1° piano). Per accedere alla sala si raccomanda di suonare al citofono Portineria e di seguire le indicazioni segnalate lungo il percorso. QUI<https://nexa.polito.it/contatti> maggiori informazioni su come raggiungerci. STANZA VIRTUALE dell'incontro: https://didattica.polito.it/VClass/NexaEvent Maggiori informazioni alla pagina: https://nexa.polito.it/mercoledi-189 Vi ricordiamo, inoltre, che al termine del Mercoledì di Nexa si terrà il consueto brindisi di fine anno, per salutarci e augurarci buone feste. Un saluto cordiale, -- Valeria Bergantino Communication Manager Nexa Center for Internet & Society Politecnico di Torino - DAUIN Via Pier Carlo Boggio, 65/A - 10138 Torino web: https://nexa.polito.it/ mail: valeria.bergantino(a)polito.it<mailto:valeria.bergantino@polito.it> tel: 3473443585

Dec. 8, 2025

Re: [nexa] Mahwish, "Watched, Tracked, and Targeted"

by maurizio lana

grazie. luoghi che mostrano la trasformazione in atto, e ne mostrano senza filtri l'oscenità. la realtà è ben oltre i nostri rant, se così posso dire. e quindi la domanda è "che cosa possiamo fare?" al di là dei rant in mailing list? come sapete questo del "cosa possiamo fare" è un chiodo fisso dei miei messaggi. Maurizio Il 07/12/25 14:49, J.C. DE MARTIN ha scritto: > *Watched, Tracked, and Targeted* > /Life in Gaza under Israel’s all-encompassing surveillance regime./ > By Mohammed R. Mhawish, a Palestinian writer and journalist from Gaza > > Dec. 3, 2025 > > In the days before we reached the Netzarim checkpoint in Gaza in early > April 2024, my wife and I rehearsed a stripped-down version of > ourselves. We had already lived through six months of war, but this > would be the first time we stood before Israeli soldiers. After seeing > journalists killed, hospitals bombed, and bullets ripping through > children, we believed that how we told our story could mean everything > — for our lives and our chances of getting out. > > We would tell the truth. But we would keep it to the parts least > likely to invite suspicion: that we were a displaced family obeying > Israel’s orders, which often came via air-dropped flyers and > anonymous, automated phone calls, to evacuate south after our > neighborhood in Gaza City was left devastated by months of > bombardment; that Asmaa was pregnant; and that our 2-year-old son, > Rafik, was weak from malnutrition. We planned to avoid identifying > ourselves as journalists. And we would say nothing to betray that we > intended for this journey to be the start of our escape from Gaza, > that we planned to exit into Egypt through the Rafah crossing. I > practiced my answers until the words felt cold. I was prepared to > speak only as a father and husband trying to survive. > > We walked through a shell-scarred stretch of road by the > Mediterranean. The stroller wheels scraped against broken concrete; > drones hummed above. My /hawiya/ — the green Israeli-authorized ID > Gazans carry — was in my pocket. After about two hours of walking, we > arrived at Netzarim. A coastal stretch where families once walked the > beach, it was now a militarized corridor of tanks, berms, and > scanners. Two tanks sat ahead of us, snipers stood above the mounds of > debris, and a line of soldiers grew clearer with every step. > > At the checkpoint, soldiers herded the crowd into groups of five. I > kept my eyes on Rafik. A soldier motioned us forward toward a camera: > a dark orb behind glass on a tripod, a red light blinking beneath its > lens. While Asmaa gripped our son’s hand, soldiers watched a screen > behind the camera. Asmaa and Rafik went first. We stared into it and > held our breath, waiting for their thumbs-up — the signal soldiers had > used for people to move on. Others were pulled aside. > > [...] > > continua qui: > https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/watched-tracked-targeted-israel-sur… > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ il pubblico uso della propria ragione deve sempre essere libero Kant Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Maurizio Lana Università del Piemonte Orientale Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici Piazza Roma 36 - 13100 Vercelli

Dec. 7, 2025

Mahwish, "Watched, Tracked, and Targeted"

by J.C. DE MARTIN

*Watched, Tracked, and Targeted* /Life in Gaza under Israel’s all-encompassing surveillance regime./ By Mohammed R. Mhawish, a Palestinian writer and journalist from Gaza Dec. 3, 2025 n the days before we reached the Netzarim checkpoint in Gaza in early April 2024, my wife and I rehearsed a stripped-down version of ourselves. We had already lived through six months of war, but this would be the first time we stood before Israeli soldiers. After seeing journalists killed, hospitals bombed, and bullets ripping through children, we believed that how we told our story could mean everything — for our lives and our chances of getting out. We would tell the truth. But we would keep it to the parts least likely to invite suspicion: that we were a displaced family obeying Israel’s orders, which often came via air-dropped flyers and anonymous, automated phone calls, to evacuate south after our neighborhood in Gaza City was left devastated by months of bombardment; that Asmaa was pregnant; and that our 2-year-old son, Rafik, was weak from malnutrition. We planned to avoid identifying ourselves as journalists. And we would say nothing to betray that we intended for this journey to be the start of our escape from Gaza, that we planned to exit into Egypt through the Rafah crossing. I practiced my answers until the words felt cold. I was prepared to speak only as a father and husband trying to survive. We walked through a shell-scarred stretch of road by the Mediterranean. The stroller wheels scraped against broken concrete; drones hummed above. My /hawiya/ — the green Israeli-authorized ID Gazans carry — was in my pocket. After about two hours of walking, we arrived at Netzarim. A coastal stretch where families once walked the beach, it was now a militarized corridor of tanks, berms, and scanners. Two tanks sat ahead of us, snipers stood above the mounds of debris, and a line of soldiers grew clearer with every step. At the checkpoint, soldiers herded the crowd into groups of five. I kept my eyes on Rafik. A soldier motioned us forward toward a camera: a dark orb behind glass on a tripod, a red light blinking beneath its lens. While Asmaa gripped our son’s hand, soldiers watched a screen behind the camera. Asmaa and Rafik went first. We stared into it and held our breath, waiting for their thumbs-up — the signal soldiers had used for people to move on. Others were pulled aside. [...] continua qui: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/watched-tracked-targeted-israel-sur…

Dec. 7, 2025

Account mobilizon di Centro Nexa e ActivityPub

by Roberto Resoli

Salve, Noto con molto piacere che Centro Nexa ha iniziato ad usare il servizio Mobilizon (istanza mobilizon.it) per divulgare eventi. È un sw libero eccellente, sviluppato dalla benemerita associazione francese Framasoft. Trattandosi di un sistema federato con il protocollo ActivityPub le sue utenze dovrebbero essere visibili dal Fediverso, rendendo immediato pubblicizzare lí gli eventi. Questo non accade (nella mia esperienza) con l'utenza: @centro_nexa_su_internet_societa@mobilizon.it https://mobilizon.it/@centro_nexa_su_internet_societa Riesco a visualizzarla, ma non a vedere gli eventi, né a seguirla. É un vero peccato, perché ho fatto lo stesso per la mia associazione: @linuxtrent@mobilizon.it https://mobilizon.it/@linuxtrent E ha funzionato bene. rob

Dec. 6, 2025

Re: [nexa] Scienziati eretici e dove trovarli (was finanziamento ricerca innovativa)

by Alfredo Bregni

Quando sento la parola "metafisica", ...mi irrito (problema mio). Preferirei sentir parlare di epistemologia, ...e mi basterebbe (opinione mia). Però, poichè ritengo (di nuovo opinione mia) che i filosofi sfornino solo opinioni, allora la mia vale quanto la loro. E -- con altri -- direi che la metafisica farebbe bene a morire, e -- per la scienza -- basterebbe (davvero) un'espistemologia seria. Se la fisica va / sta -- o non va / non sta -- in crisi, valutiamolo a livello epistemologico (e di gestione più o meno demente / parocchiale / "carrozzonale" della ricerca, ...con in più la follia dei "comitati etici" che si fiondano su una ricerca che dovrebbe essere "più libera possibile", e si dimenticano di mettere becco sulle applicazioni, ...dove invece si fanno le vere minchiate) Scusate lo sfogo. ----- Original Message ----- From: 380° via nexa To: antonio ; nexa(a)server-nexa.polito.it Sent: Friday, December 05, 2025 8:18 AM Subject: [nexa] Scienziati eretici e dove trovarli (was finanziamento ricerca innovativa)

Dec. 5, 2025

Scienziati eretici e dove trovarli (was finanziamento ricerca innovativa)

by 380°

Ciao Antonio, On 2025-11-30, antonio wrote: [...] > L'articolo di ieri del sempre originale Biuso [1] termina con: > "Quanti seguono i programmi di ricerca dominanti anche se di fatto fondati su desideri e fantasie, come appunto la teoria delle stringhe, ricevono cattedre e finanziamenti. Chi intende esplorare campi e prospettive 'eretiche' non ottiene né le une né gli altri. Invece di aprirsi, la fisica contemporanea tende a chiudersi e dunque a morire." > Passando dalla fisica teorica all'informatica, come potremmo declinare la frase "esplorare campi e prospettive eretiche" aggiungo: --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- Un’ipotesi presentata mezzo secolo fa come la ‘Teoria definitiva’, capace di unificare ogni altra prospettiva, è in realtà diventata un ostacolo allo sviluppo scientifico, un ostacolo alla ideazione, elaborazione e dimostrazione di nuove teorie e diverse ipotesi sul tempo, lo spazio, la materia, le particelle. Un ostacolo non soltanto di natura epistemologica o teorica ma anche empirica, sino alla violenza. [...] Il convergere sempre rovinoso del principio di auctoritas e del conformismo diffuso nel corpo sociale ha avuto in un eccellente matematico il proprio emblema. [...] Il declino della fisica mostrato dal percorso che dalla Teoria dei quanti ha condotto alla Teoria-M è una manifestazione piuttosto evidente del tramonto dello spirito scientifico [...] è il Postmoderno diventato strumento di una negazione e di un’affermazione: negazione della realtà, dei dati, dell’empiria, della razionalità; affermazione al loro posto di una serie di principi politici ed etici secondo i quali la verità è prerogativa di chi sa meglio imporre la propria visione del mondo. --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- Gli eretici della fisica comprendono bene che: «la fisica deve farsi meta-fisica per assumere statuto teoretico […]. La metafisica costituisce il necessario compimento della fisica teorica. […] La metafisica ‘salva’ la fisica dall’essere mera descrizione dei caratteri dell’ente e ne garantisce il valore teoretico» (Cacciari 2023, 66). [2] [...] A proposito degli "eretici" informatici: > Alzi la mano chi fa o farebbe volentieri parte del gruppo 1. Pochi, vero. Per assistere alla corsa sul carro degli (ex) eretici _prima_ deve arrivare "la valanga" [3] nella _fisica_, che potrebbe arrivare in due modi: 1. un eretico politico che decide finalmente di finanziare gli eretici scienziati, e da lì... la valanga 2. un eretico scienziato che "per caso" riesce a /bucare/ la censura (fino a "costruire" prototipi)... e da lì la valanga Poi arriverà di conseguenza "la valanga" anche nelle altre /concretezze/ della _meta-fisica_ [2]), quindi nell'informatica :-) [...] Un caro saluto, 380° > [1] https://www.aldousblog.it/single.php?id=251 [2] consiglio caldamente la lettura di questo articolo che tratta anche di fisica: https://ritirifilosofici.it/metafisica-concreta-cacciari/ [3] ovvero la riconciliazione tra scienza e metafisica, che diventerà /anche/ fenomeno sociale, oltre che per "addetti ai lavori" P.S.: ha senso parlare di fisica teorica? Cioè /in teoria/ fuziona così ma /in pratica/ funziona diversamente?!? -- 380° (lost in /traslation/) «Welcome to the chaos of the times If you go left and I go right Pray we make it out alive This is Karmageddon»

Dec. 5, 2025

Giorgio Agamben, Sull’intelligenza artificiale e sulla stupidità naturale

by 380°

Buongiorno, vi propongo queste riflessioni estremamente /ermetiche/ di Agamben in merito all'intelligenza: «Giorgio Agamben, Sull’intelligenza artificiale e sulla stupidità naturale» https://www.quodlibet.it/giorgio-agamben-sull-u2019intelligenza-artificiale… --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- «Comincia un'epoca di barbarie e le scienze saranno al suo servizio». L'epoca di barbarie non è ancora finita e la diagnosi di Nietzsche è oggi puntualmente confermata. Le scienze sono così attente a esaudire e persino precorrere ogni esigenza dell'epoca, che quando questa ha deciso che non aveva voglia né capacità di pensare, le ha subito fornito un dispositivo battezzato “Intelligenza artificiale” (per brevità, con la sigla AI). Il nome non è trasparente, perché il problema dell'AI non è quello di essere artificiale (il pensiero, in quanto inseparabile dal linguaggio, implica sempre un'arte o una parte di artificio), ma di situarsi al di fuori della mente del soggetto che pensa o dovrebbe pensare. In questo essa assomiglia all'intelletto separato di Averroè, che secondo il geniale filosofo andaluso era unico per tutti gli uomini. Per Averroè il problema era conseguentemente quello del rapporto fra l'intelletto separato e il singolo uomo. Se l'intelligenza è separata dai singoli individui, in che modo questi potranno congiungersi ad essa per pensare? La risposta di Averroè è che i singoli comunicavano con l'intelletto separato attraverso l'immaginazione, che resta individuale. È certamente sintomo della barbarie dell'epoca, nonché della sua assoluta mancanza di immaginazione, che questo problema non venga posto per l'intelligenza artificiale. Se questa fosse semplicemente uno strumento, come i calcolatori meccanici, il problema in effetti non sussisterebbe. Se invece si suppone, come di fatto avviene, che, come l‘intelletto separato di Averroé, l'AI pensi, allora il problema del rapporto col soggetto pensante non può essere evitato. Bazlen ha detto una volta che nel nostro tempo l'intelligenza è finita in mano agli stupidi. È possibile che il problema cruciale del nostro tempo abbia allora questa forma: in che modo uno stupido – cioè un non pensante ¬– può entrare in rapporto con un'intelligenza che afferma di pensare al di fuori di lui? 12 ottobre 2025 --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- ... in effetti il problema non sussiste, vero?!? :-) Saluti, 380° -- 380° (lost in /traslation/) «Welcome to the chaos of the times If you go left and I go right Pray we make it out alive This is Karmageddon»

Dec. 4, 2025

Assurdità antitrust ed apple ATT

by Claudio Agosti

se avete degli amici che lavorano in AntiTrust (AGCM) per piacere chiedetegli un parere su questa situazone: https://www.guerredirete.it/apple-i-dark-pattern-e-la-difficile-battaglia-c… In pratica Meta ha fatto causa ad Apple perché tolga la protezione dal tracking, e "permetta agli sviluppatori di terze parti di usare il loro consent form" -> che significa eterogeneità e dark pattern. non ha senso. l'ATT ha dato un'interfaccia consistente e chiara, gli utenti hanno risposto in grande maggioranza che no, non vogliono essere tracciati, e questo viene messo in discussione come "abuso della posizione dominante" Bonus: Apparentemente, l'antitrust avrebbe dovuto chiedere un parere al Garante, ma l'avrebbe fatto con una domanda molto circoscritta, tipo "ma l'ATT è necessario per rispettare il GDPR?" e il garante gli avrebbe risposto "no", perché di fatto non è necessario (è un gran progresso ed un sistema che raccogliere l'effettivo consenso del cittadino). nell'articolo faccio una speculazione un po' selvaggia... neppure l'interfaccia per chiedermi accesso al GPS, o alla rubrica, è "necessaria per rispettare il GDPR". allora l'antitrust potrebbe imporre questa rimozione? per dare il diritto agli sviluppatori terzi di mettere il loro consent form? (se esistesse un'associazione di sviluppatori di malware, ci proverebbe :)) Le interfacce di raccolta del consenso, standard su apple e su android, sono cresciute per delle esigenze di sicurezza totalmente sovrapposte a quelle di privacy, ma non sono strettamente necessarie al GDPR, non sono state create per il GDPR, ma per delle funzionalità di sicurezza e privacy basilari. con gli anni sono aumentate, e l'ATT per me è l'esempio di come una tecnologia di cui raccogliere l'opt-in/-out non debba per forza essere una periferiche, ma può essere anche un comportamento più sofisticato, come il tracciamento e adv personalizzato. Un caro saluto, Claudio -- Claudio Agosti - Hermes Center, AI Forensics, Reversing Works. Platform Auditor & Tech Researcher [ linktr.ee/claudio.agosti ]

Dec. 3, 2025

[Responsible AI] Systemic Risks from General-Purpose AI, Risto Uuk, Future of Life Institute

by Daniele Quercia

Systemic Risks from General-Purpose AI Risto Uuk, Future of Life Institute<https://futureoflife.org/> Join the meeting<https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3ameeting_OGIxYWZjY2QtYTFlYi00…> Format: 35 min talk + 25 min Q&A This talk will first give an overview of systemic risks from general-purpose AI under the EU AI Act, then present early findings from research on a taxonomy of systemic risks, and finish with ideas on how to mitigate such risks. Using a systematic review of 1,781 scholarly works, we selected 86 papers that yielded 13 risk categories and 50 contributing sources. Systemic risks – defined by the EU AI Act as large‑scale threats to societies or economies –span environmental damage, structural discrimination, governance failures, and loss of control. Prominent drivers include knowledge gaps, difficulty recognizing harm, and the unpredictable evolution of AI systems. To assess mitigation measures, we surveyed 76 experts from AI safety, critical infrastructure, democratic governance, CBRN, and bias disciplines. From 27 literature‑derived mitigation measures, three emerged as both highly effective (expert agreement > 60 %) and technically feasible: (1) safety incident reporting and security information sharing, (2) third‑party pre‑deployment model audits, and (3) pre‑deployment risk assessments. Experts emphasized external scrutiny, proactive evaluation, and transparency as core principles. Risto Uuk is the Head of EU Policy and Research at the Future of Life Institute<https://futureoflife.org/> in Brussels. He contributed to the collaborative, evidence‑driven process that led to the inclusion of general‑purpose AI and systemic‑risk provisions in the EU AI Act  – the world’s first comprehensive AI‑governance framework, designed to foster responsible innovation in Europe. He’s currently co-authoring a book, The AI Safety Endgame, with Professor Lode Lauwaert (Wiley, forthcoming) – a strategic guide to long-term AI safety. As a PhD Researcher at KU Leuven, Risto focuses on systemic risk assessment and mitigation for general-purpose AI systems. He recently served as a Visiting Researcher at Stanford’s Digital Economy Lab, examining the economic and societal implications of advanced AI. He founded and leads the biweekly EU AI Act Newsletter<https://artificialintelligenceact.substack.com/> with nearly 50,000 subscribers, and created a website<https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/> that ranks among the top search results for the AI Act globally. Previously, Risto worked for the World Economic Forum on a project about positive AI economic futures<https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Positive_AI_Economic_Futures_2021.pdf> together with Stuart Russell, Daniel Susskind and others, and did research for the European Commission on trustworthy AI<https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/ethics-guidelines-trustw…>. He holds a master’s degree in Philosophy and Public Policy from the London School of Economics and a bachelor’s degree from Tallinn University. Risto was selected as a Fellow of the International Strategy Forum, an initiative by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt (in partnership with European Council on Foreign Relations), and received the Global Priorities Fellowship from the Forethought Foundation for Global Priorities Research. Subscribe to future talk announcements: Anyone outside Bell Labs can receive talk announcements by subscribing to the mailing list. To subscribe, send an empty email with the subject line "Subscribe RAI” to daniele.quercia(a)polito.it

Dec. 3, 2025

Digital Omnibus: First Analysis of Select GDPR and ePrivacy Proposals by the Commission

by Daniela Tafani

Noyb 01 December 2025 Background. Following a leak earlier this month, the EU Commission has officially published its Digital Omnibus proposal on 19 November. While some heavily criticised changes were removed in an effort to ease the opposition, others were snuck in. This means that, contrary to the Commission's official communications, the Omnibus proposal would undermine several core provisions of the privacy law – and jeopardise people’s fundamental right to data protection. Detailed legal analysis. We have worked tirelessly on the matter over the past weeks, trying to conduct a deep analysis of all relevant changes. This is still early days, but certain problems, inconsistencies, or at least clear departure from the current logic of the GDPR or CJEU case law are evident. We compiled our findings concerning the GDPR and the ePrivacy directive in a detailed report, which you can download here. <https://noyb.eu/sites/default/files/2025-12/noyb%20Digital%20Omnibus%20Repo…> <https://noyb.eu/en/digital-omnibus-first-analysis-select-gdpr-and-eprivacy-…>

Dec. 2, 2025

189° Mercoledì di Nexa | 10 dicembre 2025, ore 17.00

by Nexa - Media

Gentilissime, gentilissimi, Vi invitiamo a partecipare al 189° Mercoledì di Nexa, che si terrà mercoledì 10 dicembre, alle ore 17.00, con un incontro dal titolo “Tech Workers e sindacato: un’analisi ecosistemica". Ospite dell'incontro: Simone Robutti (Tech Workers Coalition, Reversing.works). L'incontro si terrà IN PRESENZA e ONLINE. SEDE FISICA: Centro Nexa su Internet e Società, Politecnico di Torino, Via Boggio 65/a, Torino (1° piano). Per accedere alla sala si raccomanda di suonare al citofono Portineria e di seguire le indicazioni segnalate lungo il percorso. QUI<https://nexa.polito.it/contatti> maggiori informazioni su come raggiungerci. STANZA VIRTUALE dell'incontro: https://didattica.polito.it/VClass/NexaEvent Di seguito maggiori dettagli: https://nexa.polito.it/mercoledi-189/ Al termine del Mercoledì di Nexa si terrà il consueto brindisi di fine anno, per salutarci e augurarci buone feste. Cordiali saluti, -- Valeria Bergantino Communication Manager Nexa Center for Internet & Society Politecnico di Torino – DAUIN Via Pier Carlo Boggio, 65/a – 10138 Torino web: https://nexa.polito.it mail: valeria.bergantino(a)polito.it<mailto:valeria.bergantino@polito.it> tel: 3473443585

Dec. 1, 2025