Global Health in the Age of AI

Global Health in the Age of AI  is the result of the international Symposium of the same name held at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini in November 2024. The analyses that emerged during the Symposium demonstrate that, without a coordinated, multi-level effort, AI risks exacerbating, rather than reducing, global health inequalities. Hence the idea of formulating recommendations that propose a systemic approach capable of coordinating the technical-scientific, social, ethical and regulatory dimensions. These recommendations form the content of this 39th Quaderno di San Giorgio, the outcome of the symposium but, at the same time, a starting point for new studies and solutions, a collection of guidelines to be shared in order to envisage future scenarios and what can already be achieved today. One fundamental question remains: no ‘technological solutionism’ can compensate for the social and structural inequalities that affect access to and health outcomes globally; what is needed is a constant and sustained commitment from all stakeholders.

The publication of the Quaderni di San Giorgio, more than seventy years after the first volume, bears witness to Fondazione Giorgio Cini’s desire to actively contribute to contemporary thought and to promote the dissemination of the outcomes of the scholarly gatherings held on the island of San Giorgio. These pages bring together voices from politics, science, philosophy, and all the humanities, with contributions from the most authoritative figures in international culture, that continue to shape what has always been defined on the island of San Giorgio as “dialogue between cultures.” This edition of the Quaderni, while renewed, retains the same editorial style and scientific aims as in the past. “In San Giorgio we study, and from San Giorgio we speak and write. The Quaderni are therefore intended to document not the studies carried out in San Giorgio as such, but rather the ideas that San Giorgio would like to spread across the world.”