Elena Falletti

This presentation examines the implications of minors’ interactions with emotionally responsive digital environments, with particular attention to Generative AI-powered companions. These systems are designed to engage users in supportive, conversational, and seemingly empathetic ways, often positioning themselves as trusted confidants who can address not only practical concerns but also emotional and relational needs. For minors, whose cognitive and emotional development is still in progress, such interactions may foster forms of psychological dependence, intensifying vulnerability to emotional manipulation and distorting processes of identity formation and socialisation. The habitual reliance on AI companions risks blurring the boundaries between autonomous emotional experience and algorithmically mediated responses. By delegating intimate aspects of emotional life to systems grounded in statistical prediction rather than genuine understanding, minors may develop misplaced trust and emotional attachment toward entities incapable of providing authentic care, moral judgment, or responsibility. This dynamic raises concerns about reduced resilience, diminished interpersonal skills, and the substitution of human relationships with artificial ones, particularly in contexts of loneliness or social fragility, which may lead to severe self-harm, including suicide. From a legal perspective, the apparent empathy and personalisation offered by AI companions may generate forms of reliance with legally relevant consequences, especially when minors are involved. The proposal explores emerging challenges related to informed consent, data protection, product liability, and the duty of care owed by developers and providers of emotionally interactive technologies. Adopting a comparative and multidisciplinary approach, the abstract aims to identify potential solutions, including age-appropriate design standards, transparency and explainability requirements, limits on emotional engagement features, parental oversight mechanisms, and targeted digital literacy education. These measures are intended to mitigate risks of psychological dependence while preserving the potential benefits of digital innovation in a manner consistent with the protection of minors’ fundamental rights and well-being.

The rapid integration of artificial intelligence (AI) and robotic devices into healthcare has opened unprecedented opportunities for patients affected by severe neurological diseases and conditions. These technologies can restore lost functions, alleviate suffering, and, in some cases, sustain life itself by creating a “new physical integrity” in which the implanted device becomes inseparable from the patient’s body. However, the increasing reliance on such devices raises urgent concerns regarding their ethical, legal, and human rights implications.A central risk emerges from the potential discontinuity of device maintenance and software updates. Companies that design and produce these medical AI/robotic systems may fail economically, leading to the cessation of updates or the discontinuation of replacement parts. Equally concerning is the possibility that coverage for updates or maintenance may be withdrawn by welfare states or private insurers, either because patients lose eligibility within the healthcare system or because insurers exclude this service from their policies. In such scenarios, patients could face the deterioration of health already restored through implantation, or even risk death due to device malfunction. These outcomes challenge the protection of fundamental rights enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights. The right to life (Article 2) may be jeopardised if withdrawal of updates leads to fatal consequences. The right to physical integrity (Articles 3 and 8) assumes a new dimension. Once the body has adapted to and depends on an implanted device, its functionality becomes an integral part of the individual’s new identity. Furthermore, the right to health, closely tied to the principle of human dignity, is violated if external economic or policy choices undermine the state of well-being that has been acquired. Finally, this situation prompts an unresolved legal question: should patients whose devices are broken or no longer supported be recognised as disabled? Their impairment does not stem from innate conditions or accidents, but from the failure of technology essential to their functioning. This novel category of “device-induced disability” requires urgent attention from lawmakers and bioethicists.

Robots powered by advanced generative AI systems and large language models (LLMs) are new tools that can be employed in the domain of religions. They can serve as companions able to engage users in personalised, affective interactions, blurring the lines between cognition and empathy. Sacred-art-inspired robots like SanTO and its derivatives, which integrate local databases and LLM queries, can become a digital spiritual aid by facilitating prayer accompaniment and catechesis. Meanwhile, for the anniversary of the Protestant Reformation the blessing robot BLESS U-2 was created, and in 2025, the Greek Orthodox Church launched LOGOS, the first AI tool officially authorised by any Orthodox Church. The role of these robots and the validity of their operation is becoming a matter of discussion. The Catholic Synod's General Secretariat poses critical questions on the Church's digital mission, alongside shared best practices and unresolved challenges. Similar issues have been addressed by the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarchate, which introduced the term "Digital Missionary,". However, according to Antiqua et nova (2025), issued by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Dicastery for Culture and Education, only human beings can be considered true moral agents, capable of freedom, responsibility, and accountability. While Catholic doctrine denies moral agency to AI, recent developments encourage interreligious and ecumenical dialogue, including more open Protestant perspectives. Our contribution intends to discuss ethical and legal aspects regarding whether religious robots can be considered subjects to whom rights can be autonomously recognised, akin to capacity to act in a civil law sense, or whether they are simply objects of law over which others exercise their own rights, such as property and patentability, along with liability.

The Enlightenment introduced new philosophical approaches to law and punishment, and Cesare Beccaria was one of its most influential voices. In On Crimes and Punishments, Beccaria rejected cruel corporal punishments, torture, and the death penalty, arguing that they were ineffective in preventing crime. He believed that punishment should not be retributive but deterrent, proportionate to the offense, prompt, and certain. According to Beccaria, only mild but inevitable punishments could discourage criminal behavior, while violence and arbitrariness weakened the authority of the law. He also promoted public trials and the protection of the accused, breaking with religious and divine conceptions of punishment. Beccaria’s ideas were widely read in both Europe and America and significantly influenced the Founding Fathers of the United States. Principles such as legality, due process, and the prohibition of cruel punishments reflect his legacy. However, this influence appears increasingly distant in contemporary American constitutional criminal law. The persistence of the death penalty, harsh sentencing policies, mass incarceration, and a system focused more on severity than certainty suggest a departure from Beccaria’s rational and preventive model of punishment. This summary highlights the contrast between Beccaria’s Enlightenment ideals and modern U.S. penal practices, questioning whether his teachings survive only in theory while being largely disregarded in practice.

AI Companions are advanced Generative AI systems capable of interacting with users in a personalized, affective, and human-like manner. These systems are perceived as authentic experts across sensitive domains including medicine, psychology, and psychiatry, or as sources of comfort during periods of vulnerability, grief, or emotional distress. Such developments risk eroding the boundaries between the various elements that constitute an individual’s personality: not only rational thought, but also the capacity to experience and respond to human emotions. Who is responsible for the actions, statements, or harms produced by an AI Companion? This dynamic raises legal concerns regarding the fiduciary relationship that may arise between a human user and a machine which, although only apparently sentient, exhibits reactions capable of generating reliance and legitimate expectations that may, under certain circumstances, acquire juridical relevance. The analysis aims to contribute to the emerging debate on whether artificial agents should remain confined within the domain of legal objects or evolve toward a novel category of juridical subjectivity.

Commento a Cons. Stato (Sez. IV giur.), 4 giugno 2025, n. 4857 Gli appalti pubblici si basano sempre più su piattaforme digitali che gestiscono e valutano le offerte, ma il loro funzionamento resta spesso opaco. Con la sentenza n. 4857/2025, il Consiglio di Stato ha escluso il diritto degli offerenti ad accedere al codice sorgente quando l’algoritmo ha funzione solo ausiliaria rispetto al decisore umano, sottraendolo così alle garanzie previste per le decisioni automatizzate dall’art. 30 del Codice dei contratti pubblici.

Recentemente ha fatto scalpore sulle cronache internazionali un caso brasiliano relativo all'inserimento di un prompt manipolativo in atto giudiziario per influenzare la decisione del programma di supporto decisorio al giudice. Tuttavia la Corte si è accorta del "trucco" e ha stigmatizzato duramente il comportamento delle due legali dedicando all'argomento ampia parte della motivazione della sentenza.