The EU Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA) defines four risk categories for AI systems: unacceptable, high, limited, and minimal. However, it lacks a clear methodology for the assessment of these risks in concrete situations. Risks are broadly categorized based on the application areas of AI systems and ambiguous risk factors. This paper suggests a methodology for assessing AI risk magnitudes, focusing on the construction of real-world risk scenarios. To this scope, we propose to integrate the AIA with a framework developed by (...) the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports and related literature. This approach enables a nuanced analysis of AI risk by exploring the interplay between (a) risk determinants, (b) individual drivers of determinants, and (c) multiple risk types. We further refine the proposed methodology by applying a proportionality test to balance the competing values involved in AI risk assessment. Finally, we present three uses of this approach under the AIA: to implement the Regulation, to assess the significance of risks, and to develop internal risk management systems for AI deployers. (shrink)

The complexity and emergent autonomy of Generative AI systems introduce challenges in predictability and legal compliance. This paper analyses some of the legal and regulatory implications of such challenges in the European Union context, focusing on four areas: liability, privacy, intellectual property, and cybersecurity. It examines the adequacy of the existing and proposed EU legislation, including the Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA), in addressing the challenges posed by Generative AI in general and LLMs in particular. The paper identifies potential gaps and (...) shortcomings in the EU legislative framework and proposes recommendations to ensure the safe and compliant deployment of generative models. (shrink)

The EU proposal for the Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA) defines four risk categories: unacceptable, high, limited, and minimal. However, as these categories statically depend on broad fields of application of AI, the risk magnitude may be wrongly estimated, and the AIA may not be enforced effectively. This problem is particularly challenging when it comes to regulating general-purpose AI (GPAI), which has versatile and often unpredictable applications. Recent amendments to the compromise text, though introducing context-specific assessments, remain insufficient. To address this, (...) we propose applying the risk categories to specific AI scenarios, rather than solely to fields of application, using a risk assessment model that integrates the AIA with the risk approach arising from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and related literature. This model enables the estimation of the magnitude of AI risk by considering the interaction between (a) risk determinants, (b) individual drivers of determinants, and (c) multiple risk types. We use large language models (LLMs) as an example. (shrink)

Regulation is nothing without enforcement. This particularly holds for the dynamic field of emerging technologies. Hence, this article has two ambitions. First, it explains how the EU´s new Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA) will be implemented and enforced by various institutional bodies, thus clarifying the governance framework of the AIA. Second, it proposes a normative model of governance, providing recommendations to ensure uniform and coordinated execution of the AIA and the fulfilment of the legislation. Taken together, the article explores how the (...) AIA may be implemented by national and EU institutional bodies, encompassing longstanding bodies, such as the European Commission, and those newly established under the AIA, such as the AI Office. It investigates their roles across supranational and national levels, emphasizing how EU regulations influence institutional structures and operations. These regulations may not only directly dictate the structural design of institutions but also indirectly request administrative capacities needed to enforce the AIA. (shrink)

One of the most remarkable implications of psychological medicine in the transition from the 18th to the 19th century was the advent of a new way of looking at the human being and new tools for analysing not only behaviour and individual experience, but also historical events, collective behavioural patterns or complex cultural achievements. Unsurprisingly, the deployment of this gaze could not advance without there being a series of disputes and controversies about its reach and the limits to its indiscriminate (...) application. Focusing on the figure of French alienist Alexandre Brierre de Boismont and on the controversial cases of hallucinations and suicide, this article addresses the conflicts generated by the use of certain emblematic concepts and categories present in French psychological medicine throughout the central decades of the 19th-century, as well as the essentially ambivalent relationship of the psychopathological point of view with the criticism of a culture that was made responsible, then, as now, for a great number of psychological disorders and illnesses. (shrink)

Accountability is a cornerstone of the governance of artificial intelligence (AI). However, it is often defined too imprecisely because its multifaceted nature and the sociotechnical structure of AI systems imply a variety of values, practices, and measures to which accountability in AI can refer. We address this lack of clarity by defining accountability in terms of answerability, identifying three conditions of possibility (authority recognition, interrogation, and limitation of power), and an architecture of seven features (context, range, agent, forum, standards, process, (...) and implications). We analyse this architecture through four accountability goals (compliance, report, oversight, and enforcement). We argue that these goals are often complementary and that policy-makers emphasise or prioritise some over others depending on the proactive or reactive use of accountability and the missions of AI governance. (shrink)

This paper examines the debate on AI legal personhood, emphasizing the role of path dependencies in shaping current trajectories and prospects. Three primary path dependencies emerge: prevailing legal theories on personhood (singularist vs. clustered), the actual participation of AI in socio-digital institutions (instrumental vs. non-instrumental), and the impact of technological advancements. We argue that these factors dynamically interact, with technological optimism fostering broader attribution of the legal entitlements to AI entities and periods of scepticism narrowing such entitlements. Additional influences include (...) regulatory cross-linkages (e.g., data privacy, liability, cybersecurity) and historical legal precedents. Current regulatory frameworks, particularly in the EU, generally resist extending legal personhood to AI systems. Case law suggests that without explicit legislation, courts are unlikely to grant AI legal personhood on their own, although some authors suggest that the courts can do so. For this to happen, AI systems would first need to prove de facto legitimacy through sustained participation within socio-digital institutions. The chapter concludes by assessing near- and long-term prospects for legal personification, from generative AI and AI agents in the next 5–20 years to transformative possibilities such as AI integration with human cognition via Brain-Machine Interfaces in a more distant future. (shrink)

This chapter explores the influence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on digital democracy, focusing on four main areas: citizenship, participation, representation, and the public sphere. It traces the evolution from electronic to virtual and network democracy, underscoring how each stage has broadened democratic engagement through technology. Focusing on digital citizenship, the chapter examines how AI can improve online engagement while posing privacy risks and fostering identity stereotyping. Regarding political participation, it highlights AI's dual role in mobilising civic actions and spreading misinformation. (...) Regarding representation, AI's involvement in electoral processes can enhance voter registration, e-voting, and the efficiency of result tabulation but raises concerns regarding privacy and public trust. Also, AI's predictive capabilities shift the dynamics of political competition, posing ethical questions about manipulation and the legitimacy of democracy. Finally, the chapter examines how integrating AI and digital technologies can facilitate democratic political advocacy and personalised communication. However, this also comes with higher risks of misinformation and targeted propaganda. (shrink)

Esse artigo visa apresentar como foi forjado o conceito de pulsão de morte pelo pai da Psicanálise, Sigmund Freud. Nesse sentido, estaremos envoltos com as respectivas modificações do conceito inicial de pulsão principalmente no decorrer no período da Primeira Guerra Mundial até o final da década em questão. Esse momento é chave na teoria da pulsão almejada por Freud nos anos de 1914 até a dualismo pulsional - de pulsões de vida e pulsões de morte - em 1920 com a (...) publicação de Além do Princípio do Prazer, e é esse período que pretendemos desenvolver no presente artigo que antecede o início da Segunda Tópica. (shrink)

The article argues that AI can enhance the measurement and implementation of democratic processes within political parties, known as Intra-Party Democracy (IPD). It identifies the limitations of traditional methods for measuring IPD, which often rely on formal parameters, self-reported data, and tools like surveys. Such limitations lead to partial data collection, rare updates, and significant resource demands. To address these issues, the article suggests that specific data management and Machine Learning techniques, such as natural language processing and sentiment analysis, can (...) improve the measurement and practice of IPD. (shrink)

Esse artigo visa demonstrar como o psicanalista francês Jacques Lacan delineou e reformulou o conceito freudiano de pulsão de morte no interior dos três registros da experiência humana. Dito isso, iremos inicialmente compreender de forma geral como o conceito de pulsão de morte aparece na obra lacaniana, de maneira a demonstrarmos como ela é reformulada pelo autor francês. Depois, iremos delinear como esse conceito aparece no interior dos registros do Imaginário, Simbólico e Real; desse modo, estaremos envoltos com o Estágio (...) do Espelho desenvolvido por Lacan no decorrer dos anos 1930 e 1940, a teoria do significante fundada por nosso autor mais atentamente nos anos 1950 e por último o registro do Real, o qual foi introduzido com mais atenção a partir dos anos 1960 em diante. (shrink)

L’articolo esamina la proposta europea di regolamento sull’intelligenza artificiale, AI Act (AIA). In particolare, esamina il modello di analisi e valutazione del rischio dei sistemi di IA. L’articolo identifica tre potenziali problemi di implementazione del regolamento: (1) la predeterminazione dei livelli di rischio, (2) la genericità del giudizio di significatività del rischio e (3) l’indeterminatezza della valutazione sull’impatto dei diritti fondamentali. Il saggio suggeriscealcune soluzioni per affrontare questi tre problemi.

Partiendo de la amplia repercusión y del lugar germinal que la Historia de la locura en la época clásica (1961) ocupa en el desarrollo del pensamiento de Michel Foucault, y con el objeto de esclarecer sus antecedentes teóricos y su complejo proceso de gestación, este artículo ofrece un análisis de los escritos tempranos del filósofo francés en torno a los problemas de la psiquiatría y la psicología. En primer lugar, se aborda su posición con respecto a las premisas conceptuales de (...) la medicina mental y se señalan las insuficiencias que detectó en las principales corrientes de la psicopatología de la época (fundamentalmente, el evolucionismo, el psicoanálisis y la fenomenología). Posteriormente, se describe su primer intento de interpretar globalmente el fenómeno de la enfermedad mental desde un punto de vista social y cultural a partir de la teoría marxista de la alienación y la reflexología pavloviana. Y, por último, se muestra cómo fueron perfilándose en su producción de aquellos años algunos de los elementos y planteamientos más significativos que, al cabo de un tiempo, cristalizarían y encontrarían una forma acabada en la Historia de la locura. (shrink)

La Gran Guerra hace saltar por los aires las promesas de un mundo en constante progreso, surgirán los heraldos de una vuelta a los valores espirituales, medievales, frente a aquellos que defienden y reformulan un socialismo humanista, de raíz ilustrada, alejado de las ideologías totalitarias de su tiempo. Ramiro de Maeztu y Fernando de los Ríos representan y simbolizan con sus vidas estos dos paradigmas.

Cancel culture is a form of societal self-defense that becomes prominent particularly during periods of substantial moral upheaval. It can lead to the polarization of incompatible viewpoints if it is indiscriminately demonized. In this brief editorial letter, I consider framing cancel culture as an essentially contested concept (ECC), according to the theory of Walter B. Gallie, with the aim of establishing a groundwork for a more productive discourse on it. In particular, I propose that intermediate agreements and principles of reasonableness (...) can help refocus the debate on cancel culture towards democratic discourse, without blanket justification for every instance. In this context, asserting that cancel culture is an ECC does not dismiss the potential of achieving consensus on its shared core meaning or societal role. Like other similar ECCs, such as democracy or rule of law, it highlights the importance of contestations in shaping our collective understanding of the concept. (shrink)

In this paper, I shall set out the pros and cons of assigning legal personhood on artificial intelligence systems under civil law. More specifically, I will provide arguments supporting a functionalist justification for conferring personhood on AIs, and I will try to identify what content this legal status might have from a regulatory perspective. Being a person in law implies the entitlement to one or more legal positions. I will mainly focus on liability as it is one of the main (...) grounds for the attribution of legal personhood, like for collective legal entities. A better distribution of responsibilities resulting from unpredictably illegal and/or harmful behaviour may be one of the main reasons to justify the attribution of personhood also for AI systems. This means an efficient allocation of the risks and social costs associated with the use of AIs, ensuring the protection of victims, incentives for production, and technological innovation. However, the paper also considers other legal positions triggered by personhood in addition to responsibility: specific competencies and powers such as, for example, financial autonomy, the ability to hold property, make contracts, sue. (shrink)

The EU AI Act is the first step toward a comprehensive legal framework for AI. It introduces provisions for AI systems based on their risk levels in relation to fundamental rights. Providers of AI systems must conduct Conformity Assessments before market placement. Recent amendments added Fundamental Rights Impact Assessments for high-risk AI system users, focusing on compliance with EU and national laws, fundamental rights, and potential impacts on EU values. The paper suggests that automating business process compliance can help standardize (...) these assessments and outlines some methodological guidelines. (shrink)

This paper reviews the different meanings of vulnerability in the AI Act (AIA). We show that the AIA follows a rather established tradition of looking at vulnerability as a trait or a state of certain individuals and groups. It also includes a promising account of vulnerability as a relation but does not clarify if and how AI changes this relation. We spot the missing piece of the AIA: the lack of recognition that vulnerability is an inherent feature of all human-AI (...) interactions, varying in degree based on design choices and modes of interaction. Finally, we show how such a meaning of vulnerability may be incorporated into the AIA by interpreting the concept of “specific social situation” in Article 5 (b). (shrink)

In this paper, we provide an analysis of the concept of legal personality and discuss whether personality may be conferred on artificial intelligence systems (AIs). Legal personality will be presented as a doctrinal category that holds together bundles of rights and obligations; as a result, we first frame it as a node of inferential links between factual preconditions and legal effects. However, this inferentialist reading does not account for the ‘background reasons’ of legal personality, i.e., it does not explain why (...) we cluster different situations under this doctrinal category and how extra-legal information is integrated into it. We argue that one way to account for this background is to adopt a neoinstitutional perspective and to update the ontology of legal concepts with a further layer, the meta-institutional one. We finally argue that meta-institutional concepts can also support us in finding an equilibrium around the legal-policy choices that are involved in including (or not including) AIs among legal persons. (shrink)

Hegel stresses in his “Philosophy of Right” that the intention of the text is to offer elemnts in order to reckon a State as such and not to say how it should be. One of these elements is that the State founds and sustains the moments that precede and constitute it. In this way the family as much as the bourgeois civil society have their basis in something that results from them, i.e., the State but according to Hegel this result (...) is already present at the very beginning of both family and the bourgeois civil society. The State promotes the overcoming of both of them. The aim of this essay is to consider the relationship between the State and the bourgeois civil society trying mainly to show how Hegel understands the bourgeois civil society and also identifying the perils for a State in the hands of the bourfeois civil society. For Hegel the greatest peril is the submission of the State to the interst as something of the common interest to the interest as common and to assume it as the rule for life within it. (shrink)

Este artigo tem por objetivo apresentar o desenvolvimento do conceito de “vontade” na obra O mundo como vontade e representação (1818-9) do filósofo alemão Arthur Schopenhauer. Pretende-se apresentar o conceito perpassando inicialmente pela dicotomia kantiana da Crítica da razão pura entre “coisa em si” e “fenômeno”. Depois, seguiremos as observações feitas por Schopenhauer a essa categorização da realidade e suas ressalvas, para, então, explicitarmos a sua respectiva filosofia fundamentada na oposição entre “vontade” e “representação”. Por último, a influência desse pensamento (...) na denominada “segunda tópica” (pós 1920) na obra do pai da Psicanálise, Sigmund Freud. (shrink)

This paper provides an interpretation, based on the social systems theory of German sociologist Niklas Luhmann, of the recent paradigmatic shift of mental health care from an asylum-based model to a community-oriented network of services. The observed shift is described as the development of psychiatry as a function system of modern society and whose operative goal has moved from the medical and social management of a lower and marginalized group to the specialized medical and psychological care of the whole population. (...) From this theoretical viewpoint, the wider deployment of the modern social order as a functionally differentiated system may be considered to be a consistent driving force for this process; it has made asylum psychiatry overly incompatible with prevailing social values (particularly with the normative and regulative principle of inclusion of all individuals in the different functional spheres of society and with the common patterns of participation in modern function systems) and has, in turn, required the availability of psychiatric care for a growing number of individuals. After presenting this account, some major challenges for the future of mental health care provision, such as the overburdening of services or the overt exclusion of a significant group of potential users, are identified and briefly discussed. (shrink)

É possível ensinar filosofia? O filósofo alemão G. W. F. Hegel (1770- 1831) não somente responde afirmativamente à questão posta, como também indica o que deve ser ensinado e como em filosofia. A resposta hegeliana tem como fonte sua atividade como diretor do ginásio de Nürnberg, onde ele procura estabelecer diretrizes e procedimentos para que a filosofia seja ensinada aos jovens. Segundo Hegel, a filosofia sempre é pertinente na medida em que se manifesta sobre o que é fundamental para o (...) homem, isto é, sobre sua vida com as questões que lhe dizem respeito. Para tanto, a filosofia deve assumir o homem como seu objeto de consideração. Isto deve resultar na apreciação da realidade humana para que a partir dela sejam levados e elevados à sua maior e melhor compreensão pela reflexão e pela especulação. Tais habilidades não são adquiridas senão pelo contato direto com a filosofia em sua especificidade na sua produção histórica, ou seja, nos textos. Conhecer a história da filosofia já é aprender filosofia, mas tal aprendizagem necessita da mediação do professor. A mediação se faz necessária, pois a aprendizagem não é natural e, portanto, não se dá espontaneamente. Aprender é sempre aprender com alguém. (shrink)

The humiliated memory needs a political and epistemologycal rescue; it cannot be eliminated as part of the critic reflection of the world where we live. Modern rationality has been built in many ways and one must know their pathologies, only in that way we will be able to confront its effects. There is no other way of building our future and live our present than to incorporate and rescue all those traditions –with their pros and cons– so that we can (...) live without hate. (shrink)

International regulation of autonomous weapon systems (AWS) is increasingly conceived as an exercise in risk management. This requires a shared approach for assessing the risks of AWS. This paper presents a structured approach to risk assessment and regulation for AWS, adapting a qualitative framework inspired by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It examines the interactions among key risk factors—determinants, drivers, and types—to evaluate the risk magnitude of AWS and establish risk tolerance thresholds through a risk matrix informed by (...) background knowledge of event likelihood and severity. Further, it proposes a methodology to assess community risk appetite, emphasizing that such assessments and resulting tolerance levels should be determined through deliberation in a multistakeholder forum. The paper highlights the complexities of applying risk-based regulations to AWS internationally, particularly the challenge of defining a global community for risk assessment and regulatory legitimization. (shrink)

Machine unlearning (MU) is often analyzed in terms of how it can facilitate the “right to be forgotten.” In this commentary, we show that MU can support the OECD’s five principles for trustworthy AI, which are influencing AI development and regulation worldwide. This makes it a promising tool to translate AI principles into practice. We also argue that the implementation of MU is not without ethical risks. To address these concerns and amplify the positive impact of MU, we offer policy (...) recommendations across six categories to encourage the research and uptake of this potentially highly influential new technology. (shrink)

Regulation by design (RBD) is a growing research field that explores, develops, and criticises the regulative function of design. In this article, we provide a qualitative thematic synthesis of the existing literature. The aim is to explore and analyse RBD’s core features, practices, limitations, and related governance implications. To fulfil this aim, we examine the extant literature on RBD in the context of digital technologies. We start by identifying and structuring the core features of RBD, namely the goals, regulators, regulatees, (...) methods, and technologies. Building on that structure, we distinguish among three types of RBD practices: compliance by design, value creation by design, and optimisation by design. We then explore the challenges and limitations of RBD practices, which stem from risks associated with compliance by design, contextual limitations, or methodological uncertainty. Finally, we examine the governance implications of RBD and outline possible future directions of the research field and its practices. (shrink)

Recommender Systems (RS) on digital platforms increasingly influence user behavior, raising ethical concerns, privacy risks, harmful content promotion, and diminished user autonomy. This article examines RS within the framework of regulations and lawsuits in the United States and advocates for legislation that can withstand constitutional scrutiny under First Amendment protections. We propose (re)framing RS-curated content as commercial speech, which is subject to lessened free speech protections. This approach provides a practical path for future legislation that would allow for effective oversight (...) of RS, particularly in areas of substantial public interest like child safety, national security, and misinformation. (shrink)

O objetivo do artigo é apresentar e discutir o subcapítulo “C. A infinitude quantitativa” da Ciência da Lógica de Hegel. O subcapítulo encontra-se no segundo capítulo do livro, nomeado “Quantum”, que faz parte da segunda seção da Doutrina do Ser, nomeada “Grandeza”. Nosso foco será especialmente na segunda observação, na qual Hegel discute a antinomia, originalmente apresentada por Kant, da limitação e ilimitação do mundo no tempo e no espaço. Com isso, almejamos explicar o modo como Hegel entende o papel (...) da contradição nesse contexto. Hegel aponta para a solução kantiana deste conflito antinômico, a saber, a idealidade do espaço e do tempo, por meio do idealismo transcendental. Para Hegel, a contradição antinômica (da limitação e ilimitação do mundo no tempo e no espaço) não é apenas suportada pelo espírito, mas também dissolvida por ele. Veremos, assim, os modos como Kant e Hegel tratam esta contradição antinômica. (shrink)

This article offers a comprehensive critical review of the most popular theoretical accounts on the recent processes of deinstitutionalization and reform of mental health services and their possible underlying factors, focusing in the sharp contrast between the straightforward ideas and models maintained by mainstream psychiatry and the different interpretations delivered by authors coming from the social sciences or applying conceptual tools stemming from diverse social theories. Since all these appraisals tend to illuminate only some aspects of the process while obscuring (...) others, or do not fit at all with some important points of the actual changes, it is concluded that the quest for an adequate explanation is far from having been completed. Finally, some methodological and conceptual strategies for a renewed theoretical understanding of these significant transformations are also briefly discussed, including a comprehensive empirical evaluation of the facts, the consideration of the shifting social values and needs involved in mental health care provision and the historical analysis of deinstitutionalization policies within the framework of the broader social and cultural trends of the decades following World War II. (shrink)

The international network of submarine cables plays a crucial role in facilitating global telecommunications connectivity, carrying over 99% of all internet traffic. However, submarine cables challenge digital sovereignty due to their ownership structure, cross-jurisdictional nature, and vulnerabilities to malicious actors. In this article, we assess these challenges, current policy initiatives designed to mitigate them, and the limitations of these initiatives. The nature of submarine cables curtails a state’s ability to regulate the infrastructure on which it relies, reduces its data security, (...) and threatens its ability to provide telecommunication services. States currently address these challenges through regulatory controls over submarine cables and associated companies, investing in the development of additional cable infrastructure, and implementing physical protection measures for the cables themselves. Despite these efforts, the effectiveness of current mechanisms is hindered by significant obstacles arising from technical limitations and a lack of international coordination on regulation. We conclude by noting how these obstacles lead to gaps in states’ policies and point towards how they could be improved to create a proactive approach to submarine cable governance that defends states’ digital sovereignty. (shrink)