…but it’s not the same thing.

EU AI Act and more.

 

 

“According to the EU AI Act, an 'Artificial Intelligence system' is defined as a machine-based system designed to operate with varying levels of autonomy. [1] It may exhibit adaptiveness[2] after deployment and, for explicit or implicit objectives, infers from the input it receives to generate outputs such as predictions, content, recommendations, or decisions that can influence physical or virtual environments.” [3]

Already in the late ‘40s the French photographer Robert Doisneau described a phenomenon that he wanted to call ‘optical unconscious’, a term which then slipped away but also which prompted him a lot. He realized in fact that what the photographer was sure having captured didn’t coincide exactly with what the camera lens had photographed: he also noticed that the product could be even different from the photographer intention, whose subjective and real vision allows him, or her, to then produce photography.  

Machines have no unconscious, however they are able to generate contents even independent of their design: probably for the first time in the whole sphere of a legislation, the recent ‘EU AI Act’[4] intends “setting a global standard for AI regulation” as a factor of results which are ‘not neutral’, that is, not irrelevant on citizens and society.

However, unconscious is the only one able to grasp the quality of an algorithm: an activity which conscience is not equipped with.

 

Marina Bilotta Membretti/ Cernusco sul Naviglio – July 7, 2025

TutorSalus.net - Freudian journalism

 

Original painting by Gianni Russomando.[5]

 

 

[1] That is, ‘operates with some degree of independence from direct human control’.

[2] In fact, ‘it may evolve or learn post-deployment (self-learning, model updates)’.

[3] https://www.modulos.ai/eu-ai-act

[4] Entered into force on August 2nd, 2024 the EU AI Act – which integrates the current regulation GDPR General Data Protection Regulation – will be implemented gradually by 2026 in the sphere of high-risk content, and specifically aiming at providers of AI generative of content.

[5] Gianni Russomando: “born in Vercelli (1956), graduated at the ‘Istituto di Belle Arti di Vercelli’, I can describe me as an ‘amanuense’ (medieval hand-painter), far from expositions and competitions.”