“The delays in the diffusion of digital technologies in Italian companies they are not unbridgeable, but action must be taken to recover lost ground". The director general said this Bank of Italy, Luigi Federico Signorini on the occasion of the Florentine stop of the "Traveling with the Bank of Italy" tour promoted by Via Nazionale to promote financial culture, talk about the Italian central bank and strengthen the relationship with the territory.
The "fourth industrial revolution" between uncertainties and progress
“The so-called 'fourth industrial revolution, as well as on many aspects of personal life, has a profound impact on the economy. Every industrial revolution seemed at the beginning so radical that it could generate apocalyptic results for the economy and work, but in fact in the long run it has never been like this, on the contrary", reassured the director general of the Bank of Italy, underlining that it is a "gradual process" but also subject to sudden accelerations, as demonstrated by the experience of the pandemic Covid-19 which led to the rapid spread of forms of lremote working; diffusion allowed "by a technology that already existed, but was not fully used".
Automation, cloud computing, application of machine learning systems to tasks that require elaborate and complex knowledge are at the heart of this innovation. One of the most fear-inducing aspects of the fourth revolution concerns artificial intelligence. We wonder whether it is able to replace, or perhaps support, human activity not only in some simple tasks, but also in activities with greater conceptual content. The most common question is "will it steal our jobs?". From Florence Signorini responds as follows: “It is at the same time very likely that the downsizing of certain professions be accompanied as in the past by birth of new professions".
In this context, therefore, “the objective to be pursued does not seem to block progress so much as encourage the reallocation of resources and work, and guarantee that the resulting increases in economic well-being are widespread", states the Bank of Italy CEO.
Digital needs advanced skills
“A gap that public policies must fill is therefore that relating to advanced skills (especially mathematics, statistics, IT), essential today, also through the promotion of school and university centers of excellence - Guaranteeing, I add, the concrete possibility of "capable and deserving, even if without means" to avail themselves of them, as required by the Constitution : for reasons of fairness first of all, but also of efficiency”, highlighted Signorini, explaining how the DESI index of the digital economy and society developed by the European Commission, sees Northern European countries at the top, while countries such as Greece and Italy itself show delays, caused by insufficient human capital and the inadequacy of the administrations' digital services public.
“Italy – he said – has improved its position a little in the latest investigations, thanks to the greater diffusion of digital technologies among businesses".
Digital and productivity
“In the last quarter of a century Italy has seen a substantial stagnation of labor productivity; per capita output growth was the lowest in the European Union. We must therefore guard against the risk of remaining on the margins of the innovation process", stated Signorini who he identified. “Three areas where rapid improvements are needed”. Which? There infrastructural equipment (including the widespread diffusion of the high-speed network), the human capital (levels of knowledge and research activities, public and private), and the quality ofpublic action. “The progress achieved in these fields – he explained – ultimately seems to me to be the most important parameters with which the substantial success of the Pnrr should be judged, beyond the essential formal benchmarks”.
In this context "public action cannot replace the activity of companies, nor delude itself too much into directing it, but it can and must create the best conditions to allow the production system to adapt to conditions in continuous, unpredictable change".
There are also risks, the CEO admitted, linked to the advent of the digital age and they should not be underestimated. Think about the possible distortions of artificial intelligence decision-making algorithms or the potential abuse of personal data and violations of privacy. "There necessary regulation should try, if possible, to pursue the effective protection of significant public goods while avoiding excessive bureaucratization and an overly complex regulatory system", underlined Signorini.
“For the digital transition, as for the twin green transition, it seems sensible to me to start from the idea that it is a question of transformations that are in some respects inevitable and irreversible. There's no need to look back. If it is right to ask ourselves about the costs and dangers of technological progress and try to minimize and prevent them, it is no less important to look with confidence at the opportunities to be seized, investing energy and resources so that the country can return to a path of sustained growth", he concluded.
