The Half-Measure of Human-Grounded AI Ethics. Within the context outlined thus far, as argued by Coeckelbergh and Sætra, the debate carried on by LLMs ongoing development seems to be between two main point of view: the Marxist concept of “technological determinism” and the “technological instrumentalism” or “technical orthodoxy”.
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SPOTREP. The Los Angeles wildfires: an alternative perspective – Emilio Palmieri
Huge fires have been devastating Los Angeles for days. The damage is enormous. What do we know? What don’t we know? What to think?
Continue readingL’impegno del Puntland contro le milizie jihadiste – by G. Frinchillucci
Il 31 dicembre 2024, Mohamed Baari Shire, giovane Vicepresidente del Parlamento del Puntland, è stato bersaglio di un attacco complesso condotto dai militanti affiliati all’ISIS. L’operazione, che comprendeva esplosioni suicide e assalti armati, è stata respinta con successo dalle Forze di Sicurezza del Puntland. Sebbene l’attentato non abbia raggiunto il suo obiettivo primario, ha confermato la portata e l’organizzazione della minaccia jihadista nella regione.
Continue readingNew Orleans and Las Vegas Trump Hotel attacks: food for thought regarding military service and terrorist violence – by Maria Alvanou
The New Orleans and Las Vegas Trump Hotel attacks should both bring to the attention of experts the issue of war veteran’s post-traumatic stress and the connection between military service and extremist ideologies.
Continue readingSPOTREP: The New Orleans terror attack – by Emilio Palmieri
WHAT WE KNOW(SALT report) – Size. An armed individual, self-proclaimed as an ISIS-affiliated operative, wearing a military fatigue, driving a rented pick-up truck packed with explosives (meant to be a VBIED[1]).
Continue readingNew Orleans Truck Attack: How Terrorists Exploit Smart Technologies – by Eleonora Ristuccia & Alessandro Bolpagni
On January 1, 2025, former US Army soldier Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar drove a pickup truck on Bourbon Street, in the heart of New Orleans, killing 14 people and injuring 35 more. According to Lyonel Myrthil, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Special Agent, Jabbar had visited the city twice prior to the attack.
Continue readingFrom Data to Division 4 of 5: Artificial intelligence – by Daniele M. Barone
Mimicking a Moral Course for LLMs. The first way to stem LLMs from a conversation driving to inappropriate content are the so-called “guardrail messages,” as “I’m sorry, I cannot generate inappropriate or offensive content” or “As a large language model, I cannot … ”.
Continue readingExploring key aspects of the terrorism landscape in 2025. Challenges 2024 leaves behind – by Maria Chr. Alvanou & Marco Lombardi
2024 ends in the echo of the Magdeburg attack, a reminder of the gaps and weaknesses security agencies face when trying to combat terrorism. Earlier in December, the European Council acknowledged that “terrorism and violent extremism, as well as radicalisation, continue to pose a significant threat to the European Union and its Member States” and recognised how “destabilising internal and external events, such as Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, have heightened the terrorism threat level in some Member States and contributed to the intensification of radicalisation and social polarisation, potentially leading to terrorism and violent extremism across the Union”.
Continue readingFrom Data to Division 3 of 5: Artificial intelligence – by Daniele M. Barone
A Noisy Digital Environment as a Biased Dataset. As previously analyzed, human language in public and political debates impacts not only how individuals form opinions but also how AI systems, including LLMs, interact with users and further shape political discourse.
Continue readingMapping the pro-Islamic State (IS) ecosystem on TikTok – by Alessandro Bolpagni
Since October 2024, ITSTIME has been monitoring and analysing the presence of pro-Islamic State (IS) propaganda content on the TikTok application. The research undertaken made it possible to initially identify more than 180 seed accounts, which were used to reconstruct a network of more than 140,000 users.
Continue readingMagdeburgo 2024 e il terrorismo multipolare: nessuna novità – by Barbara Lucini
L’attentato ai mercatini di Natale di Magdeburgo di qualche giorno fa non introduce grandi novità nell’ambito della definizione di un nuovo tipo di terrorismo e innovative forme di estremismo.
Continue readingMagdeburgo 2024: la complessità di un attacco semplice – by Sara Brzuszkiewicz & Marco Lombardi
Taleb Al Abdulmohsen: saudita in Germania ma ostile all’immigrazione, arabo ma sionista, con background musulmano ma profondamente islamofobo, contrario all’oltranzismo religioso jihadista ma attentatore con modalità analoghe, ovvero il cosiddetto vehicle-ramming, l’auto lanciata a tutta velocità sulla folla.
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