Open Conversation: Artificial Intelligence, Democracy and Territories

The session brings together academics, institutional actors, students and the general public to discuss how artificial intelligence is reshaping democratic participation, the protection of fundamental rights and the governance of public decision-making. 

Three questions structure the discussion: how democracy and rights are being redefined in the European and transnational context; how local governance, European regulatory models and global scenarios can be connected, taking as a concrete case the regional law on artificial intelligence that Tuscany is about to adopt; and what role universities and their students can play in this process.

This open conversation, organised in cooperation with the Internet Festival (Pisa, October 8-11), opens a year-long Circle U. initiative on artificial intelligence, democracy and territories. Its outcomes will feed into the Summer School of the Circle U. Democracy Hub (May 2027) and into an international bootcamp in which students, researchers and teachers from across the Alliance will work together on case studies concerning artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, technology regulation and fundamental rights. The results will be presented to a general audience at the 2027 edition of the Internet Festival.

Held in English and open to the whole academic community as well as to the wider public, the activity is designed as a space where transnational teaching and public engagement meet: participants are not only an audience, but are invited to take part in the discussion and to join the following phases of the initiative.

In Pisa, the event will take place in the Gipsoteca d'Arte Antica (Piazza San Paolo all'Orto).