New Technologies between Law and Ethics: Some Reflections

Abstract

This article proposes a reflection on the relationship between ethics, law and new technologies. The relevance of the debate is testified by numerous initiatives and measures, both European and international, which aim to offer answers, necessarily not definitive but evolving, to phenomena such as the development of the internet of things, the incessant extraction and use of big data and, more generally, advances in artifi cial intelligence and robotics. From this perspective, issues such as respect for privacy and human dignity are raised, to be balanced with the right to inform and be informed as a sign of an effectively shared knowledge. What emerges is the need for a deep critical consideration of the guarantee of individual and collective spheres of action, removed from the domination of market interests, in the affirmation of prevailing and non-negotiable rights. Equally indispensable is the critical attention given to the limits to be placed on human manipulation and alteration, and on the relationship between human being and machine. This assumes a particular ethical, legal and prescriptive meaning aimed at guaranteeing the pluralism of values and dialogue typical of every democratic society.