Luciano Floridi
Biographic Data
| ID | 297957 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Luciano Floridi |
| GIVEN NAMES | Luciano |
| FAMILY NAME | Floridi |
| SIGNATURE | FLORIDI L |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Oxford |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5444-2280 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 163 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 270 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 156 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 7 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1995 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
AI and the Future of Publishing
Execution by Lethal Autonomous Mechanism
In this paper, we examine the potential integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into capital punishment through lethal autonomous mechanisms (LAMs), an extension of developments in lethal autonomous weapons (LAWs). While most philosophical and ethical research on autonomous weapons systems focuses on warfare and policing, their potential role in capital executions remains unexplored. Through anticipatory analysis of LAMs’ integration into wha…
The Artificial in “Artificial Intelligence”
A replica for our democracies? On using digital twins to enhance deliberative democracy
AI and Semantic Pareidolia
A Framework for Evaluating Global AI Governance Initiatives
Efforts to develop global governance initiatives for artificial intelligence (AI) have increased significantly in recent years. However, these initiatives have generally had a limited impact due to their vagueness, lack of authority and repetition. Several factors contribute to the difficulties in establishing effective global AI governance mechanisms, including geopolitical tensions, institutional gridlock, and the general‐purpose and sociotechn…
Competing narratives in AI ethics
Several competing narratives drive the contemporary AI ethics discourse. At the two extremes are sociotechnical dogmatism , which holds that society is full of inefficiencies and imperfections that can only be solved by better technology; and sociotechnical skepticism , which highlights the unacceptable risks AI systems pose. While both narratives have their merits, they are ultimately reductive and limiting. As a constructive synthesis, we intro…
The case for a broader approach to AI assurance
Artificial intelligence (AI) assurance is an umbrella term describing many approaches—such as impact assessment, audit, and certification procedures—used to provide evidence that an AI system is legal, ethical, and technically robust. AI assurance approaches largely focus on two overlapping categories of harms: deployment harms that emerge at, or after, the point of use, and individual harms that directly impact a person as an individual. Current…
Red Reading The Text
A Conjecture on a Fundamental Trade-Off Between Certainty and Scope in Symbolic and Generative AI
The Eclipse of the Analogue, the Hardware Turn, and how to Deal with Both
Content Studies
AI as Agency without Intelligence
Recommender systems as commercial speech
AI as legal persons
This article advances an explanatory model of the academic and policy debate on artificial intelligence (AI) systems as legal persons over time. It argues that the scientific and regulatory debate on such systems as legal persons undergoes periods of relative stability, interrupted by rapid paradigm shifts. Three interrelated factors primarily influence these oscillations: (1) competing theories of legal personhood (clustered versus singularist);…
Accountability in artificial intelligence
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 recognitio…
Smart cities
This paper considers a host of definitions and labels attached to the concept of smart cities to identify four dimensions that ground a review of ethical concerns emerging from the current debate. These are: (1) network infrastructure, with the corresponding concerns of control, surveillance, and data privacy and ownership; (2) post-political governance, embodied in the tensions between public and private decision-making and cities as post-politi…
Open source intelligence and AI
Today, open source intelligence (OSINT), i.e., information derived from publicly available sources, makes up between 80 and 90 percent of all intelligence activities carried out by Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) and intelligence services in the West. Developments in data mining, machine learning, visual forensics and, most importantly, the growing computing power available for commercial use, have enabled OSINT practitioners to speed up, and som…
Taking AI risks seriously
The EU 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 a…
Artificial intelligence in support of the circular economy
The world’s current model for economic development is unsustainable. It encourages high levels of resource extraction, consumption, and waste that undermine positive environmental outcomes. Transitioning to a circular economy (CE) model of development has been proposed as a sustainable alternative. Artificial intelligence (AI) is a crucial enabler for CE. It can aid in designing robust and sustainable products, facilitate new circular business mo…
Hypersuasion – On AI’s Persuasive Power and How to Deal with It
On the Future of Content in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
Why the AI Hype is Another Tech Bubble
The Hardware Turn in the Digital Discourse
Using Twitter to Detect Polling Place Issue Reports on U.S. Election Days
In this article, we analyze whether Twitter can be used to detect relative reports of issues at polling places. We use 20,322 tweets geolocated to U.S. states that match a series of keywords on the 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2018 general election days. We fine-tune BERTweet, a pre-trained language model, using a training set of 6,365 tweets labeled as issues or non-issues. We develop a model with an accuracy of 96.9% and a recall of 72.2%, and a…
The ethics of algorithms
In information societies, operations, decisions and choices previously left to humans are increasingly delegated to algorithms, which may advise, if not decide, about how data should be interpreted and what actions should be taken as a result. More and more often, algorithms mediate social processes, business transactions, governmental decisions, and how we perceive, understand, and interact among ourselves and with the environment. Gaps between …
Recommender systems and their ethical challenges
This article presents the first, systematic analysis of the ethical challenges posed by recommender systems through a literature review. The article identifies six areas of concern, and maps them onto a proposed taxonomy of different kinds of ethical impact. The analysis uncovers a gap in the literature: currently user-centred approaches do not consider the interests of a variety of other stakeholders-as opposed to just the receivers of a recomme…
Is Semantic Information Meaningful Data
There is no consensus yet on the definition of semantic information. This paper contributes to the current debate by criticising and revising the Standard Definition of semantic Information (SDI) as meaningful data, in favour of the Dretske-Grice approach: meaningful and well-formed data constitute semantic information only if they also qualify as contingently truthful. After a brief introduction, SDI is criticised for providing necessary but ins…
From What to How
The debate about the ethical implications of Artificial Intelligence dates from the 1960s (Samuel in Science, 132(3429):741-742, 1960. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.132.3429.741 ; Wiener in Cybernetics: or control and communication in the animal and the machine, MIT Press, New York, 1961). However, in recent years symbolic AI has been complemented and sometimes replaced by (Deep) Neural Networks and Machine Learning (ML) techniques. This has va…
A Look into the Future Impact of ICT on Our Lives
This paper may be read as a sequel of a 1995 paper, published in this journal, in which I predicted what sort of transformations and problems were likely to affect the development of the Internet and our system of organised knowledge in the medium term. In this second attempt, I look at the future developments of Information and Communication Technologies and try to guess what their impact on our lives will be. The forecast is that, in informatio…
A defence of informational structural realism
An ethical framework for the digital afterlife industry
The enduring scandal of deduction
On malfunctioning software
On the Logical Unsolvability of the Gettier Problem
Semantic information and the network theory of account
Scepticism and Animal Rationality
Article Scepticism and Animal Rationality: the Fortune of Chrysippus’ Dog in the History of Western Thought was published on January 1, 1997 in the journal Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie (volume 79, issue 1)
What a maker’s knowledge could be
Three classic distinctions specify that truths can be necessary versus contingent,analytic versus synthetic, and a priori versus a posteriori. The philosopher reading this article knows very well both how useful and ordinary such distinctions are in our conceptual work and that they have been subject to many and detailed debates, especially the last two. In the following pages, I do not wish to discuss how far they may be tenable. I shall assume …
Crowdsourced science
Recent years have seen a surge in online collaboration between experts and amateurs on scientific research. In this article, we analyse the epistemological implications of these crowdsourced projects, with a focus on Zooniverse, the world's largest citizen science web portal. We use quantitative methods to evaluate the platform's success in producing large volumes of observation statements and high impact scientific discoveries relative to more c…
Four challenges for a theory of informational privacy
Operationalising AI governance through ethics-based auditing
Ethics based auditing (EBA) is a structured process whereby an entitys past or present behaviour is assessed for consistency with moral principles or norms. Recently, EBA has attracted much attention as a governance mechanism that may bridge the gap between principles and practice in AI ethics. However, important aspects of EBA (such as the feasibility and effectiveness of different auditing procedures) have yet to be substantiated by empirical r…
Against digital ontology
Internet
The author, philosopher argues that the global network is only a stage in the endless sel-regulating process though the humlanencyclopedia constantlky strives to respond to its growth. He identifies three proceses that enable the Internet to make psssible a management of knowledge that is faster, wider in scope, more complete in termes of types of information, and easier to exercise than ever before. He also show hawo the network has already give…
Governing artificial intelligence in China and the European Union
In this article, we compare the artificial intelligence strategies of China and the European Union, assessing the key similarities and differences regarding what the high-level aims of each governance strategy are, how the development and use of AI is promoted in the public and private sectors, and whom these policies are meant to benefit. We characterize China’s strategy by its primary focus on fostering innovation and a more recent emphasis on …
Ethical aspects of multi-stakeholder recommendation systems
In this article we analyze the ethical aspects of multistakeholder recommendation systems (RSs). Following the most common approach in the literature, we assume a consequentialist framework to introduce the main concepts of multistakeholder recommendation. We then consider three research questions: Who are the stakeholders in a RS? How are their interests taken into account when formulating a recommendation? And, what is the scientific paradigm u…
Information, possible worlds and the cooptation of scepticism
The Information Society and Its Philosophy
Original article can be found at: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713669588~db=all Copyright Informa / Taylor and Francis Group
Using Twitter to Detect Polling Place Issue Reports on U.S. Election Days
In this article, we analyze whether Twitter can be used to detect relative reports of issues at polling places. We use 20,322 tweets geolocated to U.S. states that match a series of keywords on the 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2018 general election days. We fine-tune BERTweet, a pre-trained language model, using a training set of 6,365 tweets labeled as issues or non-issues. We develop a model with an accuracy of 96.9% and a recall of 72.2%, and a…
Global AI governance
Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI), combined with a proliferation in use, have led to a newfound emphasis on strengthening the global governance of AI. In this article, we assess the prospects for stronger global AI governance and consider potential pathways forward. We map the nascent landscape of international regimes focused on AI governance and conclude that a governance deficit remains due to the inadequacy of existing initiativ…
The explanation game
We propose a formal framework for interpretable machine learning. Combining elements from statistical learning, causal interventionism, and decision theory, we design an idealised explanation game in which players collaborate to find the best explanation(s) for a given algorithmic prediction. Through an iterative procedure of questions and answers, the players establish a three-dimensional Pareto frontier that describes the optimal trade-offs bet…
The Diffusion of Sextus Empiricus's Works in the Renaissance
An Annotated List of Three Known Latin TranslationsIn discussing the recovery of Pyrrhonism during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, it seems that any analysis of the influence of Sextus Empiricus's works on Renaissance culture has to be based on a careful investigation of what primary and secondary sources were available at the time, and who knew and made use of such sources.For this purpose scholars have, since the second half of the ninet…
Scepticism and the Foundation of Epistemology
Can knowledge provide its own justification? This sceptical challenge - known as the problem of the criterion - is one of the major issues in the history of epistemology, and this volume provides its first comprehensive study, in a span of time that goes from Sextus Empiricus to Quine. After an essential introduction to the notions of knowledge and of philosophy of knowledge, the book provides a detailed reconstruction of the history of the probl…
Internet
The author, philosopher argues that the global network is only a stage in the endless sel-regulating process though the humlanencyclopedia constantlky strives to respond to its growth. He identifies three proceses that enable the Internet to make psssible a management of knowledge that is faster, wider in scope, more complete in termes of types of information, and easier to exercise than ever before. He also show hawo the network has already give…
Followers of French Fashions
Evidence and Inquiry falls into three parts: chapters 1, 4 and 10 incorporate a presentation of Susan Haack's epistemological position (foundherentism); chapters 2-3 and then 5-9 provide criticisms of several contemporary epistemologies, and contribute to the formulation of the positive theses expressed in the pars construens. A somewhat neo-Cartesian perspective (see below) informs the whole project. In an escalation that reminds one of the Medi…
Skepticism and the Foundation of Epistemology
Can knowledge provide its own justification? This sceptical challenge - known as the problem of the criterion - is one of the major issues in the history of epistemology, and this volume provides its first comprehensive study, in a span of time that goes from Sextus Empiricus to Quine. After an essential introduction to the notions of knowledge and of philosophy of knowledge, the book provides a detailed reconstruction of the history of the probl…
The Internet
Scepticism and Animal Rationality
Article Scepticism and Animal Rationality: the Fortune of Chrysippus’ Dog in the History of Western Thought was published on January 1, 1997 in the journal Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie (volume 79, issue 1)
Scepticism and the Foundation of Epistemology
Can knowledge provide its own justification? This sceptical challenge - known as the problem of the criterion - is one of the major issues in the history of epistemology, and this volume provides its first comprehensive study, in a span of time that goes from Sextus Empiricus to Quine. After an essential introduction to the notions of knowledge and of philosophy of knowledge, the book provides a detailed reconstruction of the history of the probl…
Sextus Empiricus
The subject is Sextus Empiricus, one the chief sources of information on ancient philosophy and one of the most influential authors in the history of skepticism. Sextus' works have had an extraordinary influence on western philosophy, and this book provides the first exhaustive and detailed study of their recovery, transmission, and intellectual influence through Late Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance. This study deals with Sextus' …
On the Morality of Artificial Agents
On the Logical Unsolvability of the Gettier Problem
Sextus Empiricus
The subject is Sextus Empiricus, one the chief sources of information on ancient philosophy and one of the most influential authors in the history of skepticism. Sextus' works have had an extraordinary influence on western philosophy, and this book provides the first exhaustive and detailed study of their recovery, transmission, and intellectual influence through Late Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance. This study deals with Sextus' …
Information ethics, its nature and scope
No abstract available
Is Semantic Information Meaningful Data
There is no consensus yet on the definition of semantic information. This paper contributes to the current debate by criticising and revising the Standard Definition of semantic Information (SDI) as meaningful data, in favour of the Dretske-Grice approach: meaningful and well-formed data constitute semantic information only if they also qualify as contingently truthful. After a brief introduction, SDI is criticised for providing necessary but ins…
Informational privacy and its ontological interpretation
The article provides an outline of the ontological interpretation of informational privacy based on information ethics (Floridi [forthcoming-b]). It is part of a larger project of research, in which I have developed the foundations of ideas presented here (Floridi [forthcoming-c]) and their consequences (Floridi [forthcoming-a])
Information ethics, its nature and scope
"The world of the future will be an ever more demanding struggle against the limitations of our intelligence, not a comfortable hammock in which we can lie down to be waited upon by our robot slaves"---Wiener (1964), p. 69
Ética de la información
En los últimos años la «Ética de la Información» (EI) ha llegado a tener sentidos distintos para los distintos investigadores que trabajan en una amplia variedad de disciplinas. Esta situación es lamentable, ya que ha producido cierta confusión sobre la naturaleza específica y el alcance de la EI. En el presente artículo se defiende una Ética de la Información que sostiene que el comportamiento (relativo al agente) y el estatus (relativo al pacie…
Four challenges for a theory of informational privacy
Greek Epigram in the Roman Empire
A Look into the Future Impact of ICT on Our Lives
This paper may be read as a sequel of a 1995 paper, published in this journal, in which I predicted what sort of transformations and problems were likely to affect the development of the Internet and our system of organised knowledge in the medium term. In this second attempt, I look at the future developments of Information and Communication Technologies and try to guess what their impact on our lives will be. The forecast is that, in informatio…
The Method of Levels of Abstraction
A defence of informational structural realism
Outline of a Theory of Truth as Correctness for Semantic Information
The article develops a correctness theory of truth (CTT) for semantic information. After the introduction, in section two, semantic information is shown to be translatable into propositional semantic information (i). In section three, i is polarised into a query (Q) and a result (R), qualified by a specific context, a level of abstraction and a purpose. This polarization is normalised in section four, where [Q + R] is transformed into a Boolean q…
The Information Society and Its Philosophy
Original article can be found at: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713669588~db=all Copyright Informa / Taylor and Francis Group
Against digital ontology
Epistemology (96 works) · Philosophy (92 works) · Computer Science (91 works) · Philosophy of science (75 works) · Ethics and Social Impacts of AI (59 works) · Philosophy of technology (59 works) · Political science (58 works) · Sociology (50 works) · Law (41 works) · Engineering (34 works)