Big data, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, virtual reality. In a single expression "Digital Revolution", a process of digitization of information, new technologies and knowledge that has now become part of our daily lives. A revolution that presents great opportunities and great challenges, but also risks that must be understood in order to know how to face them. All of this was discussed today during a "special" edition of the World Conference "The Future of Science" entitled "Digital Revolution: how our lives will change".
After the success achieved by the traditional appointment that takes place every September in Venice, the debate was in fact hosted by the University of Milan Bicocca with the aim of presenting these issues and deepening them with students and researchers from the Lombardy region. A goal, that of technical-scientific dissemination, which is the basis of the mission of the three foundations organizing "The Future of Science": the Umberto Veronesi Foundation, the Silvio Tronchetti Provera Foundation and the Giorgio Cini Foundation.
The meeting, which was attended by Cristina Messa, Rector of the Bicocca University of Milan, Chiara Tonelli, President of "The Future of Science", and Marco Tronchetti Provera, President of the Silvio Tronchetti Provera Foundation, saw five of the leading experts on the subject worldwide: Carlo Batini (Professor of the Department of Computer Science of the Bicocca University), Alessandro Curioni (European Vice-President and Director of IBM Research in Zurich), Derrick De Kerckhove (formerly Professor of Cultures and Technology and director of the McLuhan Program at the University of Toronto, scientific director of Media Duemila, and TuttiMedia Observatory), Alberto Sangiovanni-Vincentelli (Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of Berkeley) Giuseppe Testa (Professor of Molecular Biology at the University of Milan ).
“The growing diffusion of digital data generated by the Web, by social networks, by the Internet of things makes it possible to build interpretative and predictive models – Carlo Batini explained in his speech – but at the same time this immense amount of data has inevitable impacts both on society than on the governance of states".
Data, in all its forms, is now an increasingly used resource. “However – summarized Alessandro Curioni – on numerous fronts, from the industrial to the professional sectors, the explosion of data is overcoming the human capacity to cope with it and to understand its intrinsic meaning”. The digital revolution therefore involves many aspects of our lives, with impacts on individuals, society, biotechnology and pedagogy. "The virtual space, the one that occupies the Internet, represents, together with the real space and the mental space, a third environment to be managed", explained Derrick de Kerckhove, underlining that "the digital revolution overturns the status of the individual: from autonomous person, independent and with free will, man becomes totally a prisoner of data. He finds himself distributed in profiles, a victim of his own digital unconscious ”.
“Our biological systems – explained Giuseppe Testa – are gradually developing within multiple parallel worlds, driven by the convergence of two streams of innovations: the digitization of living forms and our forms of knowledge and sociality. The biotechnological tools available make it possible to study biological phenomena increasingly as integrations of digital data and digitized life forms".
But if it is right to talk about possible worries and risks, it is also necessary to examine all the many positive aspects that can be encountered. “For the near future, the general trend is clear – explained Alberto Sangiovanni-Vintelli – the Internet of things, virtual reality and connected devices will be so pervasive as to radically change the society and the environment in which we live. Our society will be smarter, cities will become smart cities, cars will be self-driving, houses will be smart homes.”
"The digital revolution has changed every economic, productive and social sector so profoundly that it is difficult today to imagine our daily lives without the benefits of technological innovation - said Cristina Messa, Rector of the University of Milano-Bicocca - from increasingly intuitive smartphones to the accuracy of diagnostic imaging, from the effectiveness of food traceability to safety and environmental sustainability. Our University is sensitive and attentive to the development of knowledge related to data science and, in particular, to the experiments and opportunities offered by new technologies to our students and researchers. Today's meeting was born out of the need to face the new challenges and digital potential, where institutions and companies with an international profile meet to understand and follow the innovations on which not only the future of knowledge, but of all of us will depend".
“We have now entered a phase of continuous and accelerated digitization which has profound implications. In the natural sciences, the tools offered by biotechnology make it possible to analyze biological phenomena increasingly as integrations of digital data: from genomes to epigenomes, from cells to organs, all levels of biological organization are today attributable to a desire for digitization and examined, in as representations of our state of health or disease. The same happens with multiple aspects of human sociality, subject to the rampant networking of knowledge and relationships” – declared Professor Chiara Tonelli, President of The Future of Science World Conference and Professor of Genetics at the State University of Milan.
“The Digital Revolution represents a great opportunity for which the country must not be found unprepared and to face it in the best possible way, companies need to make use of new and highly specialized and at the same time multidisciplinary professional figures. For this reason we have decided to bring the experience of The Future of Science, which since its inception has represented a moment of dialogue between the world of scientific research and civil and productive society, in a symbolic place such as the University, where young talents grow and develop. This special edition of 'The Future of Science' is an important opportunity to make young people aware of new challenges” – declared Marco Tronchetti Provera, President of the Silvio Tronchetti Provera Foundation.
