A University of Bologna Student Wins the CEI Best Dissertation Award 2022-23

“Artificial Intelligence and Conversational Marketing: New Legal Challenges to Protect the Market” is the title of the dissertation with which Francesco Briamonte, a recent graduate in Media, Public and Corporate Communication (COMPASS) at the University of Bologna was selected among the five winners of the XXVII edition of the Best Dissertation Award 2022-2023. This event, organised by the Italian Electrotechnical Committee (CEI) honours the best dissertations on innovative and technological topics discussed in Italy (the award ceremony took place in Milan, last 27 February, during the institutional Conference of the Italian Electrotechnical Committee).

Under the supervision of the Private Law professor, Chiara Alvisi and the assistance of the professor of Sociology of Cultural and Communication Processes, Pina Lalli at the Department of Political and Social Sciences - SPS at the University of Bologna, Francesco investigated the topic of the increasing use of AI in business communication and its impact on the legal, economic and social systems.

The objective of this work was to legally define the emerging phenomenon of conversational marketing, which, in the dialogue between the company and its customers, employs the so-called conversational agents - software capable of imitating natural language - whose modes of operation escape the vast majority of interacting users. Briamonte noted how the misuse of conversational agents for advertising purposes is likely to compromise the user's freedom of self-determination. Hence, there is a need for commercial communication generated by these systems to be regulated by self-regulatory organisations, namely the Istituto di Autodisciplina Pubblicitaria - IAP, in Italy.

Francesco also focused on the criteria for attribution of liability for damages caused by conversational agents, especially when even programmers cannot predict the content of their communication activity. An in-depth analysis has shown that new technologies are not to be feared, provided that they can and should be regulated. They should be brought back into the legal framework of the market, which is also integrated with soft law rules, involving all parties concerned, in order to share awareness with the aim of ensuring consumers’ freedom of choice and fair competition among companies.

The initiative of CEI - an Association recognised by the Italian state and the European Union for regulatory activities and dissemination of technical-scientific culture - rewards dissertations aimed at developing and investigating topics related to national, community and international technical standardisation, its economic and juridical effects in the conception and design of products, services, plants, processes, as well as in business organisation and management and Public Administration.