I participated in the compilation of two white papers, those in the photo: 1987, the first; 2017-2018, the second. 30 years have passed between the two, and what comes out on the skills, in quality and quantity? At the time of the first book, we were among the top 5 countries in the world leading Artificial Intelligence. Today? We have a small dust ecosystem, with a balance of births / deaths almost comparable to the number of incubators, aggregators, facilitators, open days events, boot camps, easy AI for everyone, etc.…. That is, we have produced many political incubators, made a lot of coaxing and a few unicorns. This is the evolution recorded between the first book written with Aica and the second book created with AGID, the result of a varied but fair mix of skills. Two surveys with objective data then.
Why this downgrading?
Most of the companies, the big companies I mean, are almost all still at work. Poste, FFSS, ENI, Enel, Fincantieri, Leonardo (ex Finmeccanica), Stellantis (ex Fiat), Engineering ……… So what? They who should be our training ships what do they do? They make apps! But how do small startups? is already! And some small workshops, when forced.
Only the research centers – which worked – have closed: CSELT, Reiss Romoli, Comau greatly reduced, a Bordoni Foundation which has almost disappeared from the radar (who knows why?). This says a lot about how we have always supported innovation and have a long eye on real innovation. On the other hand, in the living room innovation – the television one – our supermanagers, all Pieri Angela from webinars, after privatizations and the intervention of the European Union, have given us unforgettable lessons !!!!!!
We don’t do research anymore?
Don’t worry, we do it! Like? No longer the inefficient policy of the hundred flowers? No! This time focused on what? Closely respected geopolitical affiliation: Genoa, Pisa, a bit of Bologna, traces of Milan and Turin … … For 17 years we have been posting 100 million a year to spend about 1500 researchers at IIT, for much longer we have been spending around 900 million per year for about 8000 people of the CNR, another 60 million per year for about seventy researchers at S. Anna in Pisa, more annexed and connected in the various CINECA, GARR…. Balance of leadership and participation in European projects? Leadership close to zero and as money we always pay more than we take home.
Our public, institutional investors?
Cdp, Enea, Invitalia …. they are Italian-style venture capitalists, that is, they invest in startups that cost little and without any risk, hoping that they will become “unicorns”. Why enemies of risk, then? No, only loyal to political directives to be strictly adhered to, for purposes that are sometimes very clear, others less so. Once upon a time there was the IRI (Body now dissolved) by all considered a freak, which at least gave an attitude and a semblance of content at an international level to our always lacking industrial policy. Now? Companies no longer even provide information, but only propaganda.
And the private industry?
A bonsai capitalism, very interested in the optimization of its own interests, inclined to study ever more efficient models not of globalization but, sometimes, of inversion.
But in the US, Elon Musk, a simple citizen, alone launches design challenges more important than all those of an entire state and how do we respond?
Let’s move on to the current umpteenth strategy.
Italy finally has a Strategic Program for Artificial Intelligence (AI) 2022-2024 Source: Ansa (More correctly it should have reported: The umpteenth Italian strategy for AI has arrived) …… the Program outlines twenty-four policies to be implemented over the next three years to enhance the AI system in Italy. Source: Borsa Italiana ……….. Hurray! Immediately a thousand worries to avert come to mind, cheering on the working group that had carried out the task: is it not a new strategy for Lisbon, for European-style innovation? Still a policy of one hundred flowers? Still an incremental strategy, step by step, and not “leap the frog”? But was yet another strategy really needed to understand that human resources are lacking, that infrastructure is needed, that the country system is behind because it has always pretended to support research and innovation? Was it not convenient, in order not to lose further ground with respect to the others, to implement the previous strategies? China is in the third year of implementing its five-year plan, as is Russia: do others do it, are we always writing new plans? A Gattopardo industrial policy? and finally: at least they will have treasured the maxim: who does not know history, is destined to repeat the same mistakes?
Now I have finished reading the Plan. Reported impression? Disappointing.
A few comments on the sidelines.
Flagship Projects? Challenge projects such as Hyperloop, SpaceX, Waimo, Neuralink? Projects such as the APIARIO, the parallel computer of the great and never too regretted Nicola Cabibbo? A national computation plan for our quantum computer? A project for a Tesla humanoid? DNA Computing? Origami robot? For charity!!! What do our national champions do? App, and in Robotics? Gadget (there was still Somalvico, the burdel he would have planted to laugh at!) In the software? Lower the flag? In the chips, after Pistorio with ST Microelectronics what have we combined? Were we a little too thoughtful in realizing that chips were a strategic sector? In miniaturization? Nada de nada!
I open a small incision aimed at the technicians employed in politics and the technicians in charge of the parties at the top of important National Research Centers: but in the telecommunications, one had to wait for the AWS or Vodafone, very well represented today in Italy at the highest levels, to understand that we needed our own 5G network and a cloud, to avoid subjection? The Socrate project by Pascale della Stet, 20 years ago, had already opened construction sites throughout Italy for fibrotization, because it was sold off in the part built and today we are still there to solve the problem of the last hundred meters? Is it technical or political responsibility? Bitter conclusion: We have managed to dispel a long tradition in Europe that saw us as protagonists from the time of the European Esprit project, that is, from the times of Ruberti and Caglioti. End of the engraving.
Now the money is there, – they come with the PNRR -, it’s time to go and take back the international role. It is okay to spend a small part of it to catch up on the delay accumulated in certain sectors, but the important part will have to be used for leading edge innovation. Please avoid that the word “robotics” in the implementation and procurement of the PNRR plan, disappears and is diluted in a more reassuring terminologically “automation”, AI gives way to the word digitization; big data, cloud, IoT end up in an all-encompassing cloud cauldron …. In tenders we expect a competent control of supplies to avoid that under AI labels we trample conventional products (as always happened in the past !!!!!!) . Then pay attention to the problem of inventing something and letting it snatch: with so many business schools, incubators, hackathons and other American companies, why do we always manage to give our ideas even in sectors of our excellence, such as food? We bring out the cappuccino and Starbucks does the business for us. We take out the pizza, and Pizzahut makes money. Not to mention the ice creams. But do they teach anything in retail? Or are we really poor in nature in retail?
This time, let’s take inspiration from an old lady from the United States. To a crafty restaurateur who was preparing her a huge medallion of bread with a tiny hamburger inside, in a furious way, she asks: “Where is the beef?”
In the international redistribution of work currently being implemented, we want to be a managerial class, and not a subordinate one, for the quality of our graduates. Today we want to see the “beef”, and work out what went wrong in previous strategies. After all, we have capitalized all our public companies and public research centers with the sacrifices of generations of Italians.
Who could assess whether the “beef” is proportionate to the medallion?
In my opinion, AICA, if it manages to rediscover the spirit of its origins and its prestigious past founders. It has always been a neutral point of reference for digital innovation and for real exchange between Universities, Research Centers and the Academy. AICA together with ANIPLA have always represented Italian automation in a credible way, also in Europe. AICA and ANIPLA should go beyond the production of a mere syllable of AI and Robotics, becoming a managerial part in the examination of the plan and its progressive implementation, with its own autonomous Competence Center, supported by the competent Ministries, consisting of pioneers with proven experience in AI and Robotics.
The pioneers, why?
The pioneers, the Indian guides are not homologated in the army even if they help it, in other words they are not “business developers” of the sellers, and therefore they can work on the scientific and technical evaluation of the offers, in a neutral way. We set up a Center of Competence (communities of practices, best in class, lesson learned …) to offer a national organizational reference for stakeholders, where to evaluate projects, reorient curricula, educate, and be a channel for quick contact with institutions public assignees of the use of economic resources. That is, a Center that operates as the opposite assistant on construction sites, where his figure is obligatory for major works. After all the value of experience with us is always devalued capital, while his is a great and indispensable value. There are experts, but little used as they are politically not aligned or not very loyal. This time let’s go beyond the political magic circles (let’s leave them to esotericism!) And come up with “leap the frog“ ideas and strategies.
But it is so essential to ask now “where is the beef?” Now as never before! Why, what would wrong AI and Robotics strategy mean?
Netflix tells us what to watch, Amazon tells us what to buy. Eventually within 10, 20, 30 years the algorithms might even tell you what to study in college, where to work, who to marry. Even for whom to vote “. At that point it will not even be possible to speak of “hacking” a human being. It will be like remote control. You can’t regulate the explosive power of artificial intelligence nationwide. Data concentrated in one place is the recipe for a dictatorship ”(Y.Harari). In a nutshell, it would mean replacing the entry for globalization with the entry for colonization!
A vote on the program?
It seems like one of those exercises I used to give to my students in which to describe a project in terms of objectives, activities, times, resources and costs. A formally flawless homework for Brussels (McKinsey’s class, it’s not water!), Which guarantees to make up for some lost time, lacking in vision, in courage, that courage that characterized our best scientists and industrialists at the time. great challenges. A task carried out by those who feel destined (resigned?) To executive tasks, certainly not to tasks of “whatever it takes”.
Rating: 6 +
The way to artificial intelligence
by Sandro Incerti
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