March 12, 2026 (6:15 - 8:00 GMT)

King's College London, Strand Building (Room S-2.08), London, England

As part of the Italian Symposium in London, we are delighted to invite you to an evening of interdisciplinary dialogue exploring the evolving relationship between artificial intelligence, ethics, and society with Professor Luciana Parisi (Duke University), Professor Francesca Toni (Imperial College London) and Bianca de Teffé Erb (Deloitte). 

What do we mean when we call a machine “intelligent”? And what happens to ethics, responsibility, and power when decision-making is increasingly shared with, or delegated to, algorithms?

This panel opens a critical interdisciplinary conversation across five key dimensions: how we define intelligence itself; how ethics must evolve after and with the machine; how bias and systems of social reproduction are encoded into data and models; how explainability shapes trust between humans and AI; and how technological transformation demands new forms of governance that move beyond hype and fear towards an ecological understanding of AI operations.

The event is free and will be held in English. Booking is required at the link here.

About the Speakers

Luciana Parisi is Professor in Literature and core faculty for the Graduate Program in Computational Media Art and Culture at Duke University, USA. She was a member of the CCRU (Cybernetic Culture Research Unit) and currently a co-founding member of CCB (Critical Computation Bureau). Her research is a philosophical investigation of technology in culture, aesthetics and politics. She is the author of Abstract Sex: Philosophy, Biotechnology and the Mutations of Desire (2004, Continuum Press) and Contagious Architecture. Computation, Aesthetics and Space (2013, MIT Press). She is completing a monograph on automation and philosophy (MIT Press, forthcoming) and co-editing the collection Colonial Fractals: The Racial Politics of Planetary Computation (Duke University Press, forthcoming).

Francesca Toni is Professor in Computational Logic in the Department of Computing, at Imperial College London, UK. She is the founder and leader of the CLArg (Computational Logic and Argumentation) research group and of the XAI Research Centre at Imperial. Her research interests lie within the broad area of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning in AI and Explainable AI, and in particular include Argumentation, Argument Mining, Logic-Based Multi-Agent Systems, Non-monotonic/Default/Defeasible Reasoning, Machine Learning. She is corner editor on argumentation for the Journal of Logic and Computation, in the editorial board of the Argument and Computation journal and associate editor for Theory and Practice of Logic Programming. She is also in the Board of Directors for KR Inc. and IJCAI trustee.

Bianca de Teffé Erb is Partner and Data & AI Ethics Lead at Deloitte. With over a decade of experience in consulting, she specialises in AI Governance, Ethics, Risk and Compliance. She supports multinational organisations such as NATO and ESA, public institutions and large industrial groups such as Confindustria in developing ethical and compliant AI adoption strategies, with a particular focus on the European AI Act. She is the author of the report “Towards an Ethics by Design Approach for AI,” presented at the European Parliament in 2024. Bianca was included in the “Top 20 Under 30” list by Forbes Italy in 2018. She was among the first professionals in Italy to obtain the ISO 42001 Lead Auditor certification.

The discussion will be moderated by Aglaia Freccero (Imperial College London), Dr Edoardo Occhipinti (UCL), Simone Pellegrino (Goldsmiths, University of London), and Emma Prévot (University of Oxford), four PhD and early-career researchers who will bring their diverse academic perspectives to this timely conversation on AI.

Under the broader Symposium theme, “Innovare Audere: A Future-Ready Italy,” this event reflects on the need for a critical approach to innovation and risk in shaping the future. In London, we explore how this spirit translates into Italy’s role in a rapidly changing world, through complementary perspectives on geopolitics and international relations, economic and financial competitiveness, and technology and innovation.

Over five days and across four universities, the Symposium convenes leading voices to discuss how Italy can strengthen its global influence and remain competitive in the decades ahead. The initiative is organised by United Italian Societies (UIS), a non-profit founded and led by Italian students abroad, connecting over 60 universities in more than 10 countries and representing a vibrant community of over 11,000 Italian students worldwide.

This event is co-organised with UIS Research Centre, a student-led think tank rooted in academic excellence, committed to producing rigorous policy proposals and forward-thinking research on Italy's most compelling issues that contribute to real-world institutional change.

We look forward to welcoming you all to a stimulating discussion!