Artificial Intelligence Does Not Replace Me. It Helps Me Be Freer

My experience with a digital avatar, augmentative communication, and the role of AI in the main sectors of society, between innovation, fundamental rights, and responsibility.

When we speak about artificial intelligence, public debate often oscillates between two opposite extremes. On the one hand, there are those who describe it as a threat capable of replacing workers, professionals, and even fundamental human abilities. On the other hand, there are those who regard it as a kind of magical solution destined to solve every problem of contemporary society. Both views are mistaken. Artificial intelligence is neither an inevitable threat nor a universal remedy. It is a tool. And, like every tool, its value depends on the way we use it.

As a jurist, but above all as a person with a disability, I look at artificial intelligence from a particular perspective. For many people, it is simply an innovative technology. For others, including many people with disabilities, it can represent something far more important: a concrete possibility of self-determination.

My personal experience has led me to reflect deeply on this issue. Because of my neurological condition, I use Augmentative and Alternative Communication and communicate through a speech-generating device. The ideas, reasoning, and knowledge I wish to share are often much faster than the movements of my body. I know perfectly well what I want to say. The problem is not thought. The problem is the time my body needs to translate that thought into words and actions.

When I speak as a panelist at conferences, public meetings, or training events, I write my speeches in advance and save them on my communication device. At the right moment, I play them. Not because I am unable to sustain the speech. Quite the opposite. I do so because my physical condition inevitably slows down the speed of expression. Intelligence, preparation, and skills remain intact. It is the body that proceeds at a different pace.

For this reason, I recently decided to create a digital avatar representing me. For years, I made static videos. They worked, but I felt something was missing. When we listen to a person, we do not merely receive information. We associate those words with a face, a gaze, a presence. I like the idea that those who follow my work can see a representation of me while I present a legal argument, a social reflection, or an analysis of human rights. I like the message to be associated with the person expressing it. The avatar does not replace my identity. It does not replace my thoughts. It does not replace my skills. It simply makes communication more accessible.

The words remain mine. The ideas remain mine. The articles remain mine. The reflections remain mine.

Artificial intelligence does not speak in my place.

It helps me make myself heard.

And that is an enormous difference.

This personal experience has led me to understand how reductive it is to consider artificial intelligence merely as an information technology. In reality, we are facing a tool capable of expanding human abilities across many professional fields.

Among all the sectors in which artificial intelligence is already producing concrete effects, healthcare is probably one of the most important and delicate. Health concerns the most precious good of every person, and any technological innovation that affects prevention, diagnosis, or treatment must be assessed with particular care.

In journalism, publishing, and the world of writing more generally, artificial intelligence is opening up scenarios that would have seemed unthinkable only a few years ago. It can support journalists, researchers, authors, and editors in analyzing large amounts of information, consulting documentary archives, conducting preliminary source checks, transcribing interviews, and translating content for international audiences. It can also help make texts more accessible through summaries, linguistic adaptations, and assisted reading tools. For those who write essays, articles, or divulgative works, it can be a valuable support in the research and organization phase, allowing more time to be devoted to critical elaboration and the construction of thought.

Even in this field, however, artificial intelligence cannot replace what makes intellectual work authentically human: the ability to interpret reality, formulate original questions, exercise critical thinking, contextualize facts, and take responsibility for what is published. An algorithm can process information, but it has no conscience, experience, cultural sensitivity, or professional ethics. In journalism, in particular, the principles of source verification, accuracy, independence, and responsibility toward readers remain central. Artificial intelligence can therefore become a precious tool for improving productivity and accessibility of information, but the task of narrating the complexity of the world and distinguishing between truth, opinion, and manipulation remains firmly in human hands. From this perspective, the future of publishing and communication will not be characterized by the replacement of authors by machines, but by collaboration between human creativity and technological innovation, so that technology may amplify the dissemination of knowledge without impoverishing the value of critical thought.

In my daily work of legal divulgation, article writing, and content production, I too use artificial intelligence as a support tool. It helps me work faster, organize ideas more effectively, gather information, structure complex texts, and overcome some practical difficulties connected to my physical condition. It would be hypocritical to deny this. However, there is a fundamental difference between using a tool and delegating one's own thinking to it.

Every article published on my blog, every legal reflection, every divulgative content, and every position expressed on the topics I address is born from my reasoning, my skills, my readings, and my personal experience. Artificial intelligence helps me transform an idea into a text more quickly, but it does not decide what I think and it does not build my opinion. I always revise every piece of content, verify sources, correct possible inaccuracies, and modify the text so that it truly reflects my point of view and my communicative style. In other words, I do not ask artificial intelligence to think for me; I ask it to help me express more effectively what I already think. This is a substantial difference, because the responsibility for the words published, the legal analyses, and the opinions expressed always remains mine. I consider artificial intelligence a technical collaborator, not an author. Critical thinking, human sensitivity, professional ethics, and intellectual responsibility continue to be exclusively human skills and remain, today as yesterday, the true added value of any cultural, journalistic, or professional activity.

My experience of disability has taught me that artificial intelligence can be a tool for individual emancipation. However, it would be reductive to limit its potential to this field alone. If used responsibly, it can help improve almost every sector of collective life, from healthcare to the environment, from justice to public administration, and from information to research and security.

In recent years, artificial intelligence has made extraordinary progress in analyzing diagnostic images. X-rays, CT scans, MRIs, mammograms, and histological images can be examined by algorithms trained to recognize anomalies that are sometimes difficult even for the human eye to detect. In numerous scientific studies, some systems have shown that they can support radiologists in the early detection of lung, breast, brain, and skin cancers. This does not mean that the machine is more intelligent than the doctor, but that it can become a second level of control capable of reducing the risk of errors and increasing the chances of timely diagnosis.

Artificial intelligence is also revolutionizing pharmaceutical research. Developing a new drug normally requires years of experimentation and billions in investment. Algorithms can analyze millions of molecules in extremely short times, identifying those most likely to be effective against a specific disease. During the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, AI-based tools were used to accelerate scientific research and the analysis of enormous amounts of biological and clinical data.

Another sector destined to grow enormously is personalized medicine. For decades, medicine has applied standardized therapeutic protocols. Today, thanks to the possibility of processing genetic, clinical, and environmental data, artificial intelligence can help professionals build therapeutic pathways increasingly adapted to the specific characteristics of each patient. Not everyone reacts to a therapy in the same way, not everyone presents the same risk factors, and not everyone develops the same complications. The ability to personalize care represents one of the greatest promises of the medicine of the future.

Artificial intelligence can also contribute to the management of chronic diseases, one of the main challenges facing modern healthcare systems. Through continuous monitoring devices, it is possible to collect data relating to blood sugar, blood pressure, heart rate, sleep quality, and other clinical parameters. Algorithms can process this information and signal potentially critical situations early, allowing timely interventions before serious complications occur.

Particularly interesting is also the contribution artificial intelligence can make in the field of mental health. Although no technology can replace psychologists, psychotherapists, or psychiatrists, some tools can help monitor symptoms, identify signs of distress, and promote faster access to support services. Naturally, this is an extremely delicate area requiring very high guarantees in terms of privacy, security, and professional supervision.

For people with disabilities, the potential of artificial intelligence is even more significant. Voice recognition systems, advanced communication devices, intelligent prostheses, assisted electric wheelchairs, predictive software, and augmentative communication tools can help expand personal autonomy and reduce dependence on others. For many people, this is not simply a technological convenience. It is the concrete possibility of studying, working, communicating, participating in public life, and making decisions more independently.

Think of people with neurodegenerative diseases, people with paralysis, or those with sensory disabilities or communication difficulties. In many cases, artificial intelligence can become a sort of bridge between a person's residual abilities and the outside world. It does not eliminate the condition, but it can reduce its impact on daily life.

However, precisely because health concerns fundamental rights protected by Article 32 of the Italian Constitution, both European and Italian lawmakers have chosen a particularly cautious approach. The AI Act classifies many healthcare applications as high-risk systems, imposing strict requirements of security, transparency, traceability, and human oversight. Similarly, the most recent Italian legislation reiterates that artificial intelligence must perform a supporting function and can never replace the healthcare professional in clinical decisions that affect people's life and health.

This legal choice does not stem from distrust of innovation, but from the awareness that medicine is not only a science. It is also relationship, listening, empathy, responsibility, and the ability to understand the complexity of the human condition. An algorithm can analyze millions of data points in a few seconds. It can recognize extraordinary statistical correlations. It can suggest diagnostic or therapeutic scenarios. But it cannot look into the eyes of a frightened patient, understand their fears, respect their existential choices, or assume the moral and legal responsibility of a decision.

For this reason, the future of healthcare will not be healthcare governed by machines. It will be healthcare in which increasingly skilled professionals will be able to use increasingly sophisticated technological tools to offer better, faster, and more personalized care. The real goal is not to replace the doctor. It is to allow the doctor to be even more effective in caring for people.

The environmental sector is one of the areas in which artificial intelligence could have a particularly significant positive impact in the coming decades. On a planet increasingly exposed to the effects of climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, and excessive consumption of natural resources, the ability to collect, process, and interpret enormous amounts of data very rapidly can become a fundamental tool for environmental protection.

Through the combined analysis of satellite images, meteorological data, terrestrial and marine sensors, climate models, and geographic information, artificial intelligence is now able to monitor the evolution of global temperatures, identify desertification processes, detect illegal deforestation, and observe ecosystem transformations in real time. In many areas of the world, these tools already make it possible to identify illegal logging, illegal mining, and environmental degradation promptly, phenomena that might otherwise go unnoticed for months.

Particularly important is the contribution artificial intelligence can offer in preventing forest fires. By cross-referencing data on temperature, humidity, wind speed, vegetation characteristics, and the history of previous events, some systems can identify high-risk areas and support authorities in planning prevention activities. In a country like Italy, where thousands of hectares of woodland are destroyed by fire every summer, better predictive capacity can translate into concrete protection of the environment, public safety, and even human life.

Water resource management can also benefit enormously from the use of artificial intelligence. Algorithms can identify leaks in water networks, optimize water use in agriculture, predict drought periods, and improve the management of water reserves. In a context marked by increasingly extreme climate events, the ability to use an essential resource such as water efficiently is a strategic priority for any State.

Artificial intelligence can also play a decisive role in monitoring air and marine pollution. Through the processing of data from environmental monitoring stations, drones, and satellites, it is possible to identify sources of harmful emissions, monitor air quality in urban areas, and even track the dispersion of pollutants in seas and oceans. This is particularly relevant considering that air pollution continues to represent one of the main causes of premature mortality worldwide.

Another area of extraordinary interest concerns the protection of biodiversity. Artificial intelligence can be used to identify animal and plant species through images and sound recordings, monitor wildlife migrations, detect invasive species, and support conservation programs. In some international projects, algorithms are already being used to analyze millions of photographs collected by camera traps installed in protected areas, allowing researchers to obtain valuable information on the health of ecosystems.

Even the fight against climate change can benefit from the contribution of artificial intelligence. Smart energy grids can optimize energy distribution by reducing waste, while advanced analysis systems can improve the efficiency of buildings, transportation, and industrial processes. The aim is not to replace environmental policies or the political choices needed to address the climate crisis, but to provide more effective tools for making decisions based on accurate scientific data.

Naturally, even in this sector, easy enthusiasm must be avoided. Artificial intelligence systems require technological infrastructure, consume energy, and can generate environmental impacts that are far from negligible. For this reason, the true challenge is not simply to use more technology, but to use it sustainably, responsibly, and consistently with environmental protection goals.

From this perspective, artificial intelligence should not be considered a technological shortcut that automatically solves the planet's problems. It can, however, become an extraordinary ally of science, institutions, and citizens, helping us better understand increasingly complex phenomena and intervene before damage becomes irreversible. In an era in which protecting the environment increasingly coincides with protecting humanity's future, the ability to predict, monitor, and prevent can make the difference between responsible management of natural resources and their progressive deterioration.

In the legal sector, artificial intelligence already represents an extraordinary resource for legal, case-law, and doctrinal research. Lawyers, judges, and scholars can analyze thousands of judgments, compare interpretative approaches, and identify relevant precedents in times that would have been unthinkable only a few years ago. However, the Italian legislature has rightly specified that the interpretation and application of the law remain exclusive prerogatives of the judge. Artificial intelligence can simplify judicial work, but it cannot replace human judgment.

In the bureaucratic and administrative sector, artificial intelligence can represent one of the most important innovations in the history of modern public administration. For millions of citizens, the relationship with institutions is often characterized by complex procedures, forms that are difficult to understand, long response times, and requirements to submit the same information repeatedly to different offices. AI can help overcome many of these inefficiencies through the automation of repetitive tasks, automatic document classification, intelligent management of digital archives, and rapid processing of administrative procedures. This means reducing the time needed to obtain certificates, authorizations, contributions, welfare benefits, and other essential services. It also means allowing public employees to devote more time to activities that require specialized skills, evaluative capacity, and direct contact with citizens, rather than spending much of their energy on merely bureaucratic operations.

Administrative simplification, however, is not merely an organizational improvement. It is a matter that directly affects the effectiveness of fundamental rights. A faster procedure can allow a person with a disability to obtain more promptly the aids necessary for their autonomy; a family in economic difficulty to access social support in a timely manner; an elderly person to receive without obstacles a benefit to which they are entitled; or a business to start an activity without being suffocated by delays and unnecessary requirements. Artificial intelligence can also make public services more accessible through virtual assistance systems available twenty-four hours a day, automatic translations for foreign citizens, simplified reading tools, and interfaces designed for people with sensory or cognitive disabilities. From this perspective, a public administration that uses artificial intelligence responsibly does not merely become more efficient: it becomes more inclusive, closer to citizens, and more consistent with the principles of substantive equality enshrined in Article 3 of the Constitution, which requires the Republic to remove obstacles limiting people's freedom and participation in the social, economic, and political life of the country.

The social sector can also derive enormous benefits from artificial intelligence. Automatic translations, real-time subtitling, learning support tools, and advanced communication systems can help reduce inequalities and barriers that for years have limited access to information, education, and services. Thanks to its ability to adapt content and language to the needs of different users, AI can foster broader participation in social, cultural, and economic life. It can promote the inclusion of migrants and refugees through rapid translations and easier access to information, support students with special educational needs through personalized learning pathways, and help older people maintain their independence for longer.

It can also support social workers, educators, and third-sector associations in identifying emerging needs and organizing more effective interventions. From this perspective, artificial intelligence should not be seen as a simple technological innovation, but as a tool that, if designed according to criteria of universal accessibility and with respect for human dignity, can help make society more equitable, inclusive, and capable of valuing differences rather than turning them into obstacles. If used responsibly, it can strengthen social cohesion, expand opportunities for participation, and make more effective those principles of substantive equality and solidarity that form the foundation of every democratic society.

Even the military sector shows that the problem is not technology itself, but the use human beings decide to make of it. Artificial intelligence can be employed in many activities with primarily defensive or humanitarian purposes: from the protection of critical infrastructure to cyber defense against attacks, from emergency management to the search for missing persons after natural disasters, and even demining and the clearance of territories contaminated by explosive devices. Through the rapid analysis of huge amounts of data, AI can support authorities in identifying threats, planning evacuations, coordinating rescue operations, and protecting civilian populations in crisis situations. In this sense, it can become a precious tool for saving human lives and improving States' capacity to respond to complex and unpredictable events.

At the same time, however, the military sector is probably the one in which the most delicate ethical and legal issues arise. The development of so-called autonomous weapons systems, capable of identifying and striking targets with an increasing level of automation, raises fundamental questions about responsibility for lethal decisions, the protection of civilians, and respect for international humanitarian law. Who is responsible for an error committed by an algorithm in a theatre of war? Is it acceptable to entrust a machine with the choice of striking a human being? These are questions to which international law has not yet provided definitive answers. For this reason, the United Nations, numerous governments, humanitarian organizations, and scholars of international law continue to discuss the need to guarantee meaningful human control over every decision that may involve the use of lethal force.

Contemporary legal reflection focuses in particular on the core principles of international humanitarian law, such as the principle of distinction between combatants and civilians, the principle of proportionality, and the principle of precaution in attacks. These are assessments that often require an extremely complex contextual, moral, and legal judgment, one that is difficult to reduce to mere algorithmic processing. For this reason, a significant part of the international community believes that artificial intelligence must remain a support tool for human decisions and must not become an autonomous subject capable of deciding on the life and death of persons. Even in the military field, therefore, the challenge is not to stop technological progress, but to govern it through clear rules, effective controls, and constant respect for human dignity, so that innovation remains at the service of security without compromising the fundamental values of law and legal civilization.

All this inevitably calls into question the issue of fundamental rights. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, ratified by Italy through Law No. 18 of 2009, places individual autonomy, social participation, and accessibility at its core. Articles 9, 19, and 21 require States to promote tools that enable persons with disabilities to live independently, communicate effectively, and participate fully in society.

The same principle emerges from Article 3 of the Italian Constitution. Its second paragraph requires the Republic to remove obstacles that limit citizens' freedom and equality. In the twenty-first century, some of these barriers can be dismantled precisely through digital technologies and artificial intelligence.

European law is also moving in this direction. Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, better known as the AI Act, represents the first comprehensive legal framework in the world dedicated to artificial intelligence. The regulation entered into force on 1 August 2024 and its application is progressive. It is based on essential principles: human-centredness, human oversight, transparency, safety, non-discrimination, and protection of fundamental rights.

Italy has also become the first country in the European Union to adopt comprehensive national legislation on artificial intelligence with Law No. 132 of 2025. This legislation reaffirms the principle of an anthropocentric approach, establishing that artificial intelligence must always remain at the service of human beings and that fundamental decisions must remain under human control. The law expressly refers to the principles of human dignity, transparency, proportionality, safety, non-discrimination, and protection of fundamental rights.

The most recent European legal reflections also underline the need to ensure that artificial intelligence systems do not produce discrimination against persons with disabilities and that persons with disabilities actively participate in the design and implementation of the technologies that concern them.

The real question, therefore, is not whether or not to use artificial intelligence. The real question is how to use it. Every great technological innovation has aroused fears, resistance, and debate. It happened with printing, with the Industrial Revolution, with electricity, with the Internet, and with social networks. Today it is happening with artificial intelligence. However, history teaches us that progress cannot be stopped: it can only be governed. For this reason, the central issue is not the presence of AI in our lives, but the ability of institutions, professionals, and citizens to use it consciously, transparently, and with respect for fundamental rights. If used without rules, it can generate new forms of discrimination, manipulation, and concentration of power. If used responsibly, it can instead expand opportunities, knowledge, and democratic participation.

As a person with a disability, I can say that every time technology enables me to overcome a barrier, communicate more effectively, participate in public debate, or carry out activities that would otherwise be extremely difficult, I do not feel replaced by a machine. On the contrary, I feel that technology is finally doing what it should do: adapting to the person rather than requiring the person to adapt to their own limits. For too long, disability has been observed almost exclusively through what a person was unable to do. New technologies, instead, allow us to focus more on what a person can do when provided with adequate tools. They do not eliminate the condition, erase daily difficulties, or magically transform reality, but they can reduce the weight of the barriers that hinder full participation in social, cultural, and professional life.

In my case, this means being able to communicate more effectively, write faster, create divulgative content, participate in conferences, deliver public speeches, and reach people whom I would otherwise have greater difficulty involving. It means being able to use a digital avatar that makes communication more immediate without renouncing my identity. It means being able to use tools that help me transform thought into concrete content despite the limits imposed by my body. The ideas remain mine, the study remains mine, the opinions remain mine, and the responsibility for what I publish remains exclusively mine. But technology allows me to travel that stretch of road which my physical condition makes slower and more laborious.

I feel that I am finally being placed in a position to exercise my rights. And when I speak of rights, I do not refer only to freedom of expression, but also to the right to participate in public life, the right to work, the right to education, the right to access information, and the right to contribute to society with one's own skills. Too often, autonomy is considered something absolute: either one is autonomous or one is not. In reality, autonomy is almost always the result of tools, support, and opportunities that allow people to express their potential. From this point of view, artificial intelligence can become an extraordinary instrument of emancipation.

And this, in my view, is precisely the highest form of innovation. Not the kind that replaces human beings, but the kind that enhances their abilities. Not the kind that reduces the person to data or an algorithm, but the kind that allows them to participate more fully in the life of the community. Not the kind that creates new dependencies, but the kind that expands spaces of freedom.

Not a technology that takes the place of the human being.

But a technology that restores to people what every democratic legal order should guarantee: autonomy, dignity, participation, and freedom. Ultimately, true progress is not measured by the power of the machines we are able to build, but by our ability to use those machines to make society fairer, more accessible, and more inclusive. If artificial intelligence succeeds in helping us in this task, then it will not only be a technological revolution. It will be a civil revolution.

Perhaps this is why I look at artificial intelligence with caution, but also with hope. Not because I believe it can solve every problem. Not because I imagine a future entrusted to machines. But because I know very well the difference between having something to say and not being able to say it as quickly as one thinks it. Every time technology helps me bridge that distance, I do not see an algorithm. I see an opportunity. I see a tool that allows me to be more autonomous, more present, and freer. And I believe that the true success of artificial intelligence will not be to create machines increasingly similar to human beings, but to build a society capable of placing every human being in the position to fully express their potential.