Viola Schiaffonati

Since the publication in 1969 of Herbert Simon’s seminal book The Sciences of the Artificial, the question of the artificiality of our own world has been raised and analyzed with different approaches and from many angles. The current acceleration in the design, deployment, and use of autonomous and intelligent systems (notably AI and intelligent robotics) calls for an urgent reconsideration of the realm of artificiality in light of the peculiarities of these artificial systems and their increasing diffusion in the fabric of society. Notwithstanding the evolution and diffusion of these systems, a comprehensive investigation on the nature of artificiality and the foundations of the new sciences of the artificial is missing. Rather than an incremental improvement of the sciences of the artificial, in line with Simon’s view, this research aims at working on the creation of a new, interdisciplinary field of study that has a particular class of computational artifacts as its objects of investigation. This project has a philosophical nature: laying the foundations, and investigating the presuppositions, of a new realm of knowledge in a comprehensive way.