The next goal: Establish a permanent observatory on artificial Intelligence.
On Thursday, March 13, 2025, a press conference was held at the Foreign Press Association in Italy to present the AI Assisi Act. The event took place at Palazzo Grazioli in Rome.
Those present included Alberto BARACHINI, Undersecretary of State to the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, responsible for information and publishing; Carlo BARTOLI, President of the National Council of the Order of Journalists; Friar Giulio CESAREO, OFM Conv., Director of the Communications Office of the Sacred Convent of Assisi; Cosimo LORUSSO, President of the Order of Journalists of Umbria [Italy]; Mario MORCELLINI, Director of CORIS (Department of Communication and Social Research, La Sapienza University [Rome]) and ordinary member of the Superior Council of Communications; Giovanni PARAPINI, Director of the RAI regional office in Umbria; and Luca ANGELINI, Deputy Director of Confindustria Umbria and Director of the Digital Innovation Hub.
The charter on artificial intelligence in the field of communication and journalism arose from collaboration between the friars of the Sacred Convent of St. Francis in Assisi and the Order of Journalists of Umbria. It was officially presented for the first time on September 15 of last year during the final day of the Cortile di Francesco, a cultural event organized by the community of friars in Assisi.
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“We want to reaffirm the centrality of human beings and their dignity,” declared Cosimo LORUSSO. “Technology is for humans and not the other way around. AI is a great opportunity, but only if it is directed, not towards profit, but towards enhancing our intellectual capacity and the quality of our existence, in other words, our humanity […].”
“Our reflection and its outcome,” Friar Giulio CESAREO emphasized, “which is expressed in the AI Assisi Act declaration is an ethical text, not in the sense that it proposes rules, but that it solicits our responsibility and creativity towards shared values, which are the basis of democratic order. Following the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, this declaration reaffirms the centrality of the value of human beings and the inalienability of their rights. In fact, AI is not an uncontrollable force or a lucky accident. It is the fruit of human creativity that, in order to be considered true progress, must serve human life in its various components and the entire human family […].”
Mario MORCELLINI highlighted the importance of making texts such as the AI Assisi Act as accessible as possible, bringing it to schools and universities and submitting it to the attention of students: “Artificial Intelligence is nothing more than an enormous increase in the availability of data and we need someone to help us put it in order. Knowledge is not about the quantity of data but the way it becomes part of one’s consciousness and subjectivity.”
As announced during the press conference, the project that led to the creation of the Charter has, as its next goal, the establishment of a permanent observatory to track the implementation of the guidelines and objectives outlined in the document.
You can find the text of the full article at: https://www.sanfrancescopatronoditalia.it/notizie/societa/l-ai-assisi-act-presentato-all-associazione-della-stampa-estera-53636
You can download the text of the Charter on Artificial Intelligence in the field of communication and journalism, at:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1cKLvq1miClmW86NWpIMuZPVFmcfeVp45?usp=sharing
Press Room – Andrea ROSSI
Sacred Convent of St. Francis
