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Luigi Carfora's Thesis from Giordano Bruno to Artificial Intelligence

Luigi Carfora

AUTHOR'S NOTE AND DECLARATION OF ORIGINALITY

This work constitutes an original thesis and elaboration by Luigi Carfora on the relationship between knowledge, authority, power, science, faith and technology, developed through a historical-philosophical reinterpretation of the story of Giordano Bruno and its forward-looking connection with Galileo Galilei, Antonino Zichichi, Joseph Ratzinger and the new frontiers of Artificial Intelligence.

The text distinguishes between facts documented by historical sources, historiographical interpretations, and the author's philosophical and forward-looking elaborations. The original connections and interpretative theses proposed in this work belong to the author and are expressly presented as interpretations and research perspectives, not as definitively established historical truths.

© 2026 Luigi Carfora — All rights reserved.

Reproduction, including partial reproduction, publication, adaptation or distribution of this work is prohibited without the author's prior authorization, subject to the rights and exceptions provided for by applicable copyright law. Quotations are permitted within the limits established by law, provided that the author and source are properly acknowledged.

From Giordano Bruno to Artificial Intelligence

Prologue — The Question That Crosses the Centuries

Every age believes it is living entirely within its own present. In reality, some questions cross the centuries and re-emerge whenever humanity acquires a new form of knowledge capable of changing reality.

One of these questions is simple, yet it contains one of the greatest issues in human history:

who controls knowledge controls power.

Knowledge, in fact, is never merely an accumulation of information. When human beings understand a law of nature, discover a new land, observe the movement of the stars, master a new source of energy, build a machine or develop artificial intelligence, they increase their ability to intervene in the world. And when the ability to intervene in reality increases, economic, social, political and geopolitical balances inevitably change.

This is the perspective from which we intend to reconsider the story of Giordano Bruno.

Not to add yet another celebration of a martyr of free thought. Nor to replace one ideological narrative of history with another.

Our objective is more ambitious: to seek the truth of the facts, distinguishing what is documented from what has been interpreted, distorted, simplified or used over the centuries that followed.

Bruno represents our starting point because his story belongs to one of the most dramatic moments in Western history: the transition from the Renaissance world to modernity, when new scientific knowledge, new philosophical conceptions and new forms of circulation of ideas began to challenge established balances.

But we must immediately make a fundamental distinction.

Christ cannot be identified without distinction with the historical forms assumed by the institutional Church.

Christianity, as an evangelical and theological message, must be distinguished from the historical forms assumed by the ecclesiastical institution and, in the particular context of the sixteenth century, from its exercise of spiritual, juridical and temporal power.

This distinction will be essential to understanding Bruno.

I do not intend to demonstrate a priori that he was an orthodox Christian, nor to ignore the theological propositions that were challenged against him. I intend to examine directly his writings, the records of the trial and the historical sources in order to understand what Bruno actually thought about God, Christ, Scripture, nature, humanity and knowledge.

The question, therefore, will not simply be:

"Was Giordano Bruno a heretic?"

It will be:

"What did Giordano Bruno actually think, and why did his thought become incompatible with the ecclesiastical authority of his time to the point of leading him to the stake?"

And again:

"Was his condemnation determined solely by his theological propositions, or did his new vision of nature, the universe, humanity and knowledge also challenge a system of authority and power?"

These are different questions. And they require different answers.

Our research will therefore begin with the documents, not with the conclusion.

We will have to distinguish the charges actually documented from accusations reported at different stages of the proceedings; distinguish Bruno's thought from the interpretations of his inquisitors; distinguish the historical Bruno from the Bruno who was transformed, in later centuries, into a symbol of different cultural battles.

It will be equally important to understand the meaning of the word pantheism.

Bruno is frequently described as a pantheist. But this definition cannot be assumed to be an original truth established by his trial. We will have to examine whether his conception of God, the One, nature, the world soul and the infinite can really be reduced, without distortion, to the philosophical category of pantheism, or whether that definition represents a later interpretation of his thought.

This caution is essential.

Because our purpose is not to replace one legend with another.

It is to reconstruct.

And precisely through the reconstruction of Bruno, the greater problem will emerge.

When a new form of knowledge changes humanity's representation of the world, it changes not only what human beings know.

It changes what human beings can do.

Copernicus changes the position of the Earth in the universe.

Bruno carries that revolution toward the cosmological and metaphysical infinite.

Galileo transforms the new vision of nature into observation, experience and demonstration.

Modern science progressively asserts the autonomy of the scientific method in the study of nature with respect to authorities external to scientific verification.

Technology transforms knowledge into productive capability.

Energy transforms that capability into industrial and geopolitical power.

Bioethics introduces the problem of the moral limits of scientific capability to intervene in life.

And today, artificial intelligence opens an entirely different frontier.

With artificial intelligence, humanity enters a different frontier: it is no longer building only tools capable of helping us to know, but systems capable of processing vast amounts of information, learning from data and producing outputs that can influence decisions and actions.

It is building systems capable of processing knowledge, learning, making decisions and, through cognitive robotics and humanoid systems, acting physically upon reality.

Here Bruno's question returns, but in a completely new form:

who will control knowledge when an increasing part of its processing and application can be entrusted to artificial systems?

And immediately another, even more unsettling question emerges:

who will control those who control artificial intelligence?

This is why our journey will not end in 1600.

It will move from Bruno to Galileo Galilei, from the Scientific Revolution to Antonino Zichichi's reflection on the relationship between science and the Creator, from Joseph Ratzinger's theology of the relationship between faith and reason to bioethics, and finally to artificial intelligence, cognitive robotics, humanoid systems and the new question of technological sovereignty.

The perspective guiding this journey will be deeply Christian, but not anti-scientific.

Quite the opposite.

Galileo offers us a fundamental principle: nature can be studied through reason and experience precisely because it is God's creation. Science does not necessarily have to distance humanity from the Creator; it can lead to a deeper understanding of Creation.

Zichichi will bring this question into the heart of contemporary physics.

Ratzinger will provide the theological reference through which to understand that faith and reason are not necessarily antagonistic, and that technology, when separated from the truth about humanity, risks becoming a form of power over humanity.

And here the biblical account of Eden and the Tower of Babel takes on a new interpretative force.

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil cannot simply be read as a prohibition against knowledge. The biblical problem is deeper: the human claim to appropriate good and evil autonomously, transforming knowledge into an absolute prerogative.

At Babel, meanwhile, knowledge becomes constructive capability and collective power: humanity builds a tower and seeks to "make a name" for itself.

Knowledge and power meet.

This is precisely what we must question in the face of artificial intelligence.

We should not ask only how intelligent a machine might become.

We must ask what idea of humanity, life, responsibility, Creation and the good will be incorporated into the machines we build.

Human beings can create tools, transform matter, discover the laws of nature and push toward the boundaries of knowledge. But they remain creatures.

Technical capability does not coincide with moral legitimacy.

The fact that we can do something does not necessarily mean that we should do it.

From Giordano Bruno to Artificial Intelligence

1. A Man Born Within Christianity

To understand Giordano Bruno, we must first free ourselves from a representation that, over the centuries, has come to overlap with the historical figure: that of a thinker who was already born in opposition to the Church, almost as though he were a modern free thinker who had accidentally appeared in the sixteenth century.

That is not the case.

Filippo Bruno was born in Nola in 1548 and entered the Order of Preachers at a very young age. At the convent of San Domenico Maggiore in Naples, he received a theological education that was neither marginal nor superficial. He studied Aristotelian philosophy, scholastic theology, Thomas Aquinas and Peter Lombard; he was ordained a priest in 1572 and obtained a degree in theology in 1575.

This fact must remain at the center of our reconstruction.

Bruno knew the language of Christian theology from within.

He knew Scripture, the Fathers of the Church, scholastic philosophy, Church doctrine and the theological controversies of his time. He was therefore not simply a man who had positioned himself against a religion he did not know.

He was a man who had studied from within the religious institution and who, through that very education, would develop an increasingly radical philosophical inquiry.

This does not mean—and we must not pretend that it does—that Bruno remained faithful to every Catholic dogma until his death. The trial documents show otherwise on several issues.

It does mean, however, that his story must be understood through a more precise question:

Did Bruno move away from Christ, or did he come into conflict with the theological interpretation and institutional authority exercised by the Church of his time over knowledge?

The answer cannot be established by decree.

It must be sought in his writings.

2. The World in Which Bruno Lived

Bruno was born into a Europe undergoing an unprecedented transformation.

The discovery of America had suddenly expanded the boundaries of the known world.

The printing press had multiplied the speed at which ideas circulated.

Humanism had brought the direct study of ancient texts back to the center of intellectual life.

The rediscovery of Plato, Neoplatonism, Hermeticism and philosophical traditions that predated scholasticism opened new intellectual paths.

Copernicus challenged the position of the Earth in the universe.

The Protestant Reformation broke the religious unity of Western Europe.

The Catholic Church responded through the Council of Trent and the strengthening of instruments of doctrinal control.

This transformation was not merely religious.

It was a transformation of the entire system through which Europe defined what was true, who was authorized to say it, and what social and political consequences a new truth could have.

It is within this fracture that we must place Bruno.

3. The Church of Bruno's Time

To understand the conflict, we must avoid another anachronism.

The Church of the sixteenth century cannot be described using the categories of the contemporary Church.

In the political reality of the time, the papacy also exercised temporal power; religious, juridical and political authority were deeply intertwined.

Heresy was therefore not merely a private matter of opinion.

To challenge a religious principle recognized by ecclesiastical authority could also mean challenging a social and political order founded upon that same authority.

This does not mean that every religious condemnation was necessarily motivated by political interests.

It means that the political dimension cannot be excluded from the historical analysis of the system within which those condemnations took place.

And it is precisely this distinction that will allow us to study Bruno's case without prejudice.

4. Bruno's Quest

Bruno's peculiarity does not simply consist in having accepted Copernicus.

His undertaking was much more radical.

Bruno carried the Copernican revolution from the astronomical level to the philosophical and metaphysical level.

If the Earth is not the center of the universe, why should humanity be?

If there are countless worlds, why should the universe be organized according to the traditional hierarchical structure?

If the cosmos is infinite, how should we rethink the relationship between God, nature and humanity?

These questions led Bruno toward a conception of the universe in which infinity assumed a central role.

And this is where his thought becomes particularly difficult to classify.

Bruno speaks of God, the One, nature, the world soul and infinity through a personal synthesis in which elements of ancient philosophy, Neoplatonism, Hermeticism, the Aristotelian tradition and the Christian culture in which he had been educated converge.

Bruno cannot be reduced to the simple label of "pantheist": his conception of God, infinity, nature and the universe must be reconstructed directly through his works and through the propositions challenged during his trial.

Pantheism, in its modern philosophical formulation, identifies God and the universe in a manner that does not necessarily coincide with what Bruno means when he speaks of the One, nature and divinity.

The question must therefore be addressed through his texts, not through a later label.

5. The Charges: What We Must Separate

One of the most frequent errors in the historical memory of Bruno consists in taking all the accusations that emerged during his legal proceedings and turning them into a single undifferentiated list.

We cannot do that.

We must distinguish at least three levels:

the accusations brought in Venice;

the propositions examined in Rome;

the objections that ultimately became part of the final condemnation.

The documentation shows that the trial examined questions concerning, among other things, the Trinity, transubstantiation, Christ, the virginity of Mary, the soul, the plurality of worlds, the eternity of the universe, and other theological and philosophical propositions.

However, not all these statements have the same documentary weight, nor can they all be presented as though Bruno had formulated them in the same way.

Our reconstruction will report only the charges that are actually documented, distinguishing, as far as possible, the procedural stage in which each objection emerged and the nature of the relevant source.

This is the point at which we intend to distinguish our approach from reconstructions that merge the different procedural stages or turn accusations formulated at different moments into a single list.

We do not want to demonstrate that Bruno was innocent by eliminating the accusations.

We want to establish which accusations were actually his, how they were formulated, and how they were transformed into theological and legal charges.

6. The Roman Trial

In 1592, Bruno was arrested in Venice.

After the Venetian proceedings, he was transferred to Rome in 1593.

From that moment, a procedural phase began that would last approximately seven years.

This fact alone should prevent any simplistic interpretation.

It was not an immediate decision.

His works, statements and positions were examined repeatedly.

During the trial, Bruno also had moments when he appeared willing to recant.

But progressively the conflict focused on a decisive point: his willingness to accept the interpretation of the inquisitorial authority concerning the propositions under examination.

In 1599, propositions deemed heretical were submitted to him.

On 21 December 1599, Bruno definitively refused to recant.

On 20 January 1600, Clement VIII ordered that Bruno be sentenced as a formal, impenitent and pertinacious heretic and handed over to the secular arm. The sentence was then publicly read on 8 February 1600.

On 17 February 1600, Bruno was taken to Campo de' Fiori and burned at the stake.

His books were condemned and destined for destruction.

7. The Meaning of Pertinacity

Here we find one of the most important points of the entire story.

Bruno was not condemned merely because he held certain opinions.

He was classified as pertinacious because he refused the recantation demanded by the authority.

This means that, in the inquisitorial proceedings, the question of truth could not be separated from the question of authority.

The question became:

Who has the final word in determining whether a proposition may be upheld by a Christian?

Bruno?

His conscience?

Philosophical reason?

Theology?

The ecclesiastical tribunal?

This is where Bruno's case goes beyond an individual doctrinal dispute.

8. Bruno and the Power of the Word

The fate of his books cannot be regarded as a minor detail either.

The condemnation did not concern only the man.

It also concerned the transmission of his thought.

His books were condemned and destined for burning; his works were also included in the Index.

Before his execution, he was also prevented from freely using his voice.

Sources relating to the execution report that Bruno was taken to the stake with his tongue restrained, preventing him from speaking. We have no documentary evidence, however, that this measure was intended to prevent him from uttering magical formulas or prayers capable of saving him.

This distinction must be maintained.

But the fact remains symbolically and politically powerful:

Bruno was deprived of his person, his voice and the public transmission of his work.

From this perspective, power does not strike only the thinker.

It also strikes the possibility that his thought may continue to circulate.

9. The Question We Must Ask

At this point, we cannot yet conclude that Bruno was condemned because his thought threatened the temporal power of the Church.

That would be to anticipate the conclusion.

But we can place this hypothesis at the center of the research:

Was Bruno's theological condemnation merely the application of the doctrine of his time, or did it also represent an instrument through which a political-religious system of authority sought to prevent the spread of a new conception of the universe, nature, humanity and the relationship with God?

This is the interpretative thesis I propose in this work, developed on the basis of the documentation examined and compared with the available sources. Documented facts are distinguished from the interpretations I propose; my thesis consists in interpreting Bruno's story also in light of the relationship between knowledge, ecclesiastical authority and temporal power within the historical context of his time.

This thesis will therefore be argued by comparing Bruno's trial with the historical context in which it took place and by distinguishing what the sources document from what they allow us to interpret.

Because what was at stake may have been much greater than a dispute over cosmology.

10. The Contemporary Church's Reassessment

Four centuries later, the Holy See itself called for the story of Giordano Bruno to be reconsidered "with a spirit open to the fullness of historical truth." In the message of 17 February 2000, Secretary of State Cardinal Angelo Sodano acknowledged that Bruno had arrived, on certain decisive points, at positions incompatible with Christian doctrine, but also acknowledged that the inquisitorial proceedings used coercive methods that were common at the time and that its violent outcome, carried out by the secular authorities, is today a matter of profound regret for the Church. The same document nevertheless specifies that the judges were regarded as being motivated by the desire to serve the truth and promote the common good, and that they had also done what they could to save his life.

This document therefore does not allow us to conclude that Bruno's condemnation was determined by a political purpose. It does, however, allow us to distinguish more precisely between the theological propositions under challenge, the inquisitorial proceedings and the execution of the sentence by the secular authorities. It is precisely within this distinction that the interpretative question of this work is situated.

It is within this distinction that my thesis is situated: to determine whether the relationship between knowledge, authority and temporal power constitutes an indispensable dimension for fully understanding the story of Giordano Bruno.

11. The Protection Bruno Did Not Have

The comparison with Galileo will be one of our most important analytical tools.

Galileo was born almost half a century after Bruno and lived in a different context.

But he had something Bruno did not have to the same extent: a network of political and cultural protection.

The Medici, and in particular Cosimo II, offered Galileo significant political and cultural protection, especially after his move to Florence in 1610.

Galileo would become court philosopher and mathematician and enjoy a political and cultural prestige that allowed him to face his confrontation with ecclesiastical authority under very different circumstances.

This does not mean that Medici protection made Galileo immune to ecclesiastical power.

It did not.

Galileo was nevertheless tried in 1633 and condemned.

But he was not Bruno.

He was not taken to the stake.

And this difference deserves to be studied.

From Giordano Bruno to Artificial Intelligence

12. Bruno, Galileo and the Same Question

Why? Because it introduces a variable that is often underestimated in the history of innovation:

what a person discovers is not the only thing that matters; what also matters is the system of power that decides whether that discovery can survive, spread and transform society.

12. Bruno, Galileo and the Same Question

Bruno and Galileo were not the same thinker.

They must not be conflated.

Bruno was primarily a philosopher and metaphysician; Galileo was above all an experimental scientist and mathematician.

Yet both participated in a fundamental transformation:

nature became something that human beings could question directly.

And here we find the continuity with the Christian perspective proposed in this work.

Galileo did not see science as a denial of God.

On the contrary, he wrote:

"nor is God revealed less excellently in the effects of nature than in the sacred words of Scripture."

Nature is therefore a path through which humanity can contemplate the work of the Creator.

Science does not destroy God.

It can become a means through which human beings gain a deeper understanding of Creation.

This will be one of the keys through which I propose to reinterpret Bruno.

13. From Bruno's Knowledge to Galileo's Science

The transition from Bruno to Galileo therefore does not represent a progressive departure from religion.

It represents something more complex:

the progressive achievement of autonomy in the method through which human beings study nature.

Galileo would give this autonomy a formulation destined to change history:

"in disputes concerning natural problems, one should not begin with the authority of passages from Scripture, but with sensible experiences and necessary demonstrations."

This is not a declaration against God.

It is a declaration against the confusion of different domains.

Scripture and nature have the same Author; but nature must be questioned through the tools proper to the study of nature.

This principle would become one of the foundations of scientific modernity.

14. From Science to the Future

And this is precisely where our journey must go beyond Bruno.

If knowledge changes power, every revolution in knowledge inevitably creates a new political question.

In the historical path proposed here, the astronomical revolution changed humanity's representation of the cosmos.

The Scientific Revolution expanded humanity's ability to understand nature.

The Industrial Revolution transformed that knowledge into productive power.

The expansion of energy use helped transform productive power into geopolitical power.

The digital revolution transformed information into a new form of capital.

Artificial intelligence is taking another step:

it transforms knowledge into a capability that can be partially delegated to artificial systems.

Cognitive robotics adds another dimension:

artificial knowledge can become the capacity to act.

With humanoid systems, this capability enters directly into the physical space of human beings.

But this is precisely where the relationship between knowledge and power changes direction once again.

In Giordano Bruno's time, power could also be exercised through control of knowledge: new knowledge capable of challenging the established order could become destabilizing for authority.

With Galileo, knowledge progressively gains autonomy from authority, and science develops its own criteria of observation, experience and verification. Knowledge therefore becomes an autonomous force capable of transforming society.

From that point onward, however, knowledge does not remain merely knowledge. It becomes technology; technology becomes productive and strategic capability; technological capability becomes power.

And here the inverted trajectory of our time becomes visible: what once had the potential to destabilize power — new knowledge — can today be incorporated into technology and become one of the instruments through which power is strengthened.

The contemporary problem is therefore not merely who controls what human beings can know. It is who controls the instruments through which knowledge is produced, processed, selected, distributed and transformed into decisions and action.

This is where our historical research becomes a question about the future.

15. From the Tree of Knowledge to the Tower of Babel

The biblical tradition offers two images that can help us understand not only the growth of human knowledge and power, but also the risk that, once transformed into technological capability, they may exceed human measure and control.

In Eden, the problem is not simply knowledge.

It is the human claim to autonomously appropriate the knowledge of good and evil.

At Babel, the problem is not simply the ability to build.

It is the human claim to build its own greatness to the point of "making a name for itself," as though its own power could become absolute.

Knowledge and power meet. And when knowledge becomes technology, power no longer consists merely in the ability to know and build, but also in the ability to delegate increasingly broad functions of processing, decision-making and action to one's own technological creation.

It is precisely in the face of artificial intelligence that this question takes on a new and concrete form today.

Today, humanity is building systems capable not only of executing instructions, but of processing information, learning from data, generating content, supporting decisions and, through robotic systems, intervening in the physical world.

Here a second inversion emerges.

If in the past the problem was power seeking to prevent knowledge from destabilizing the established order, today the opposite problem is emerging: a technology powered by knowledge could progressively become capable of operating with increasing levels of autonomy from direct human intervention.

The future question would therefore not only be who controls knowledge or who controls technology. It would be whether human beings can continue to fully govern a technology to which they have progressively delegated parts of their own capacity to know, decide and act.

This does not mean claiming that this scenario has already materialized, nor attributing to machines a will of their own that we cannot demonstrate today. It means examining the limit beyond which the complexity and autonomy of technological systems could make it more difficult for human beings to understand them, govern them and limit their effects.

And this is precisely where technological reflection meets the anthropological question and, within the perspective of this work, the theological question.

If humanity builds technology capable of knowing, processing, deciding and acting with increasing levels of autonomy, the problem is no longer only what human beings can do with technology. It also concerns what technology might eventually do with the power that humanity has entrusted to it.

The question is therefore not to imagine a machine that "becomes God." Such a claim would be neither scientifically demonstrable nor theologically correct. The question is more concrete: if human beings progressively transfer to their technological creation functions that belonged to their own capacity to know, decide and act, they could eventually become dependent upon the very technology they have built.

From this perspective, the creation could become the limit of the freedom of its own creator.

The question is therefore not whether we should be afraid of artificial intelligence.

The question is:

what idea of humanity will guide its construction?

And above all:

who will determine what artificial intelligence should consider true, right, useful and morally acceptable?

This question will lead us to the bioethics of intelligence, cognitive robotics, humanoid systems and technological sovereignty.

But first we must pass through Galileo.

And after Galileo we must meet another scientist who made the relationship between science and the Creator a central part of his reflection:

Antonino Zichichi.

He will take us from the Scientific Revolution to contemporary physics and show us how, even after centuries of scientific progress, the question of God has not necessarily disappeared.

On the contrary, it can become even more radical.

Because the more deeply humanity enters into the structure of Creation, the more unavoidable the question of the ultimate meaning of reality becomes.

And it is from this question that, in our journey, we will eventually arrive at artificial intelligence.

PART II — GALILEO GALILEI

The Book of Nature and the Autonomy of Knowledge

1. Galileo after Bruno

When Giordano Bruno was burned alive in Rome on 17 February 1600, Galileo Galilei was thirty-six years old.

History would ultimately separate them, but the problem that connects them was destined to become one of the great questions of modernity:

who can determine how reality should be interpreted?

Bruno had carried Copernican cosmology toward a philosophical conception of an infinite universe. Galileo, instead, would bring the new astronomy into a method founded on observation, experience and mathematics.

The difference is decisive.

Bruno was above all a philosopher of nature and infinity.

Galileo was the protagonist of a methodological transformation that would make science progressively autonomous in the search for the laws of nature.

And yet it is essential not to turn Galileo into the symbol of a war between science and religion.

Galileo did not fight God.

He challenged the claim to use an authority external to the scientific method to determine in advance what nature could or could not be.

This distinction will be one of the cornerstones of our work.

2. Nature as God's Creation

Galileo's reflection on nature developed within a vision in which the natural world was regarded as the work of the Creator.

For Galileo, the natural world was not a meaningless mechanism.

It was Creation.

And precisely because it is Creation, it can be studied.

God gave human beings senses, reason and intellect.

Using them to understand nature does not mean moving away from God: it means using the instruments that God Himself gave humanity.

This is the deeper meaning of Galileo's conception of the two books: the Book of Scripture and the Book of Nature.

Both have a divine origin.

The difficulty arises only when human beings confuse their languages and attribute to Scripture a function that does not belong to it, or attempt to use a literal interpretation of a biblical passage to deny what natural experience and demonstration have established.

Galileo expressed this in his Letter to Christina of Lorraine:

"nor is God revealed less excellently in the effects of nature than in the sacred words of Scripture."
(Galileo Galilei, Letter to Christina of Lorraine, 1615)

It is a statement of extraordinary importance.

Nature becomes a path through which humanity can contemplate God.

Not because science replaces faith.

But because the Creator also reveals Himself through Creation.

3. The Statement That Separates Galileo from Scientism

The greatness of Galileo's position lies precisely here.

Galileo does not say:

science explains God.

He says something more subtle:

science enables us to understand the works of God.

This distinction is fundamental.

Science can describe, measure, verify and explain natural phenomena.

But the question of the ultimate reason for existence, the meaning of reality and the Creator belongs to a further level.

For this reason, Galileo is not a precursor of scientism.

On the contrary, he is one of the figures who helped establish the proper relationship between scientific knowledge and faith.

Science must be free within its own domain.

Faith must not become a physics textbook.

But science, precisely in order to be authentically rational, must not claim to demonstrate that something does not exist merely because it does not belong to its own method.

4. "The Book of Nature"

In the Il Saggiatore, Galileo wrote one of the most important metaphors in the history of science:

"Philosophy is written in this grand book which is continually before our eyes, I mean the universe..."

He then adds that the book is written in the language of mathematics.

This conception introduces a revolution.

Nature must no longer be known solely through the authority of the ancients.

It must be questioned.

Observed.

Measured.

Subjected to experience.

Translated mathematically.

Verified.

Knowledge therefore becomes a process in which human authority is progressively replaced by the authority of observable reality.

This is the true meaning of the Galilean revolution.

5. The Statement That Would Become a Turning Point

In the Letter to Christina, Galileo formulated a principle destined to become fundamental:

"in disputes concerning natural problems, one should not begin with the authority of passages from Scripture, but with sensible experiences and necessary demonstrations."

This is not a declaration against Scripture.

It is a statement about the order of knowledge.

If we want to know how the physical world works, we must question the physical world.

Scripture does not lose its value.

It simply loses a function that Galileo believed did not belong to it: that of replacing natural experience in determining physical laws.

This distinction would become one of the great foundations of modernity.

6. The Question of Power

Here we return to the central theme of our book.

If an authority possesses a monopoly over the interpretation of reality, it also possesses a form of power.

When Galileo asserts that nature can be known directly through experience and reason, he is not merely introducing a new scientific method.

He is helping to change the distribution of authority.

Human beings can observe.

They can measure.

They can verify.

They can repeat an experiment.

They can challenge an authority on the basis of evidence.

Once established, this principle cannot easily be confined to astronomy.

It becomes one of the foundations of modernity.

Knowledge is no longer necessarily something that an authority transmits.

It can be something that human beings verify.

And here our title begins to reveal its meaning:

WHO CONTROLS KNOWLEDGE CONTROLS POWER.

7. Galileo and the Church: Avoiding a False War

Galileo's story is often told through an overly simple opposition:

science versus the Church.

Reality is more complex.

Galileo was a believer.

Numerous members of the Church were engaged in scientific research.

The Church had astronomers and mathematicians of great ability.

The conflict progressively emerged around a precise question: who had the authority to establish the correct interpretation of certain natural phenomena when they appeared to conflict with a traditional interpretation of Scripture?

Galileo maintained that, when natural demonstrations and sensory experience were available, they could not simply be denied on the basis of a literal reading of a biblical passage.

The problem therefore became methodological.

But precisely because the Church of the time also possessed an institutional and political dimension, the methodological problem inevitably acquired a dimension of power.

8. Galileo's Different Fate

Here the comparison with Bruno returns.

Galileo would not be protected by the Church.

Instead, at least for long periods, he would be supported by a powerful political and cultural network.

The Medici were a decisive component of this protection.

In 1610, Galileo was summoned to Florence by Cosimo II de' Medici and assumed the role of court philosopher and mathematician.

The discovery of Jupiter's satellites and their designation as the "Medicean Stars" further strengthened the relationship between his research and the Grand Ducal family.

This element should not be interpreted simply as a biographical curiosity.

It is a lesson in the history of innovation.

Scientific truth may be the same; the possibility of publicly defending it may also depend on the system of power within which the scientist operates.

Bruno did not have comparable political protection.

Galileo did.

Galileo would nevertheless be tried and condemned.

But his fate would be different.

This difference does not automatically prove that Bruno's condemnation was political.

But it does demonstrate that political protection can profoundly alter the trajectory of an innovation and the ability of its author to survive a conflict with power.

9. Galileo and the True Autonomy of Science

The historical outcome of Galileo's story would be far greater than the trial itself.

Modern science would progressively develop its own institutions, methods, communities and criteria of verification.

Scientific truth would no longer depend on the social position of the person speaking.

A proposition would not be true because an authority pronounced it.

It would be true because it could be demonstrated, observed and verified according to the appropriate method.

This is one of the fundamental steps in the history of the freedom of knowledge.

But once again, we must avoid an error.

The autonomy of science does not mean the absolute moral autonomy of technology.

These are two different questions.

Science can establish:

what is possible.

It cannot, by itself, establish:

what is morally right to do.

This distinction will become fundamental when we arrive at bioethics and artificial intelligence.

10. From Galileo to Zichichi

Four centuries after Galileo, Antonino Zichichi would take up the question from a thoroughly contemporary perspective.

Zichichi does not regard science as a denial of faith.

On the contrary, his public reflection emphasizes that scientific knowledge of the universe does not eliminate the question of the origin, order and meaning of Creation.

His interest in Galileo is not accidental.

Zichichi devoted the work Galilei divin uomo to the Pisan scientist and explicitly addressed the relationship between science and faith in Perché io credo in Colui che ha fatto il mondo.

(Antonino Zichichi, Perché io credo in Colui che ha fatto il mondo. Tra fede e scienza, Il Saggiatore, Milan, 1999.)

Antonino Zichichi, Galilei divin uomo, Il Saggiatore, Milan, 2001).

His position interests us not because we should turn Zichichi into a theological authority, but because he represents an important contemporary example of a scientist who sees no necessary incompatibility between rigorous scientific research and faith in the Creator.

And it is precisely here that our journey gains continuity.

11. Science Does Not Eliminate Mystery

The more deeply science penetrates the structure of matter, the universe and life, the greater the amount of reality we are able to know.

But increasing knowledge does not necessarily mean eliminating mystery.

The opposite may happen.

Every answer can open new questions.

Every law discovered can raise a deeper question about the origin of that law.

Every structure of the universe can lead to a further question about the reason for its intelligibility.

This is not a scientific argument for proving God.

It is a philosophical question.

And it is precisely here that we must maintain the distinction between:

science, philosophy and theology.

Science studies the natural world.

Philosophy also questions the premises, meaning and consequences of knowledge.

Theology engages with God through Revelation and reason.

The three dimensions can dialogue without being confused with one another.

12. Ratzinger and the Relationship Between Faith and Reason

At this point our fundamental theological reference enters the discussion: Joseph Ratzinger, Benedict XVI.

His reflection on the relationship between faith and reason is particularly important for our journey because it rejects both reductions.

On the one hand, faith must not become irrationality.

On the other, reason must not be reduced to what is immediately measurable and technically usable.

Humanity is greater than mere computational ability.

Reason itself raises questions about goodness, truth, dignity, justice and meaning.

And this is where technology encounters its natural limit.

A machine can calculate.

It can optimize.

It can predict.

It can learn.

But the question "What should we do?" is not identical to the question "What can we do?"

13. From Science to Bioethics

For much of the second half of the twentieth century, Western society found itself facing a new question:

if science makes it possible to intervene in life, what limits should we place on this capability?

Bioethics emerged and developed.

Genetics.

Assisted reproduction.

Stem cells.

Cloning.

Genetic engineering.

Transplantation.

End-of-life decisions.

Manipulation of the biological heritage.

Science could increasingly say:

"we can do it."

Bioethics introduced a different question:

"should we do it?"

This was a decisive transformation.

Society discovered that technical possibility does not coincide with moral legitimacy.

14. And Then Artificial Intelligence Arrives

AI introduces a further discontinuity.

With bioethics, human beings intervene in life.

With artificial intelligence, humanity begins to build systems capable of processing knowledge.

With cognitive robotics, it builds systems capable of perceiving, learning, deciding and acting.

With humanoid systems, this capability is transferred into an artificial body capable of operating within the human environment.

The question of bioethics therefore becomes a much broader question:

what moral limits should accompany the construction of a new artificial cognitive capability?

It is no longer sufficient to speak only of safety.

We must speak of:

human dignity, responsibility, truth, freedom, justice, autonomy, control, power and Creation.

15. Humanity Facing Its Own Creative Capability

Here Genesis returns.

Human beings can know.

They can build.

They can transform.

They can create artifacts.

But they are not God.

The Tree of Knowledge and the Tower of Babel can be read, within our philosophical perspective, as two complementary images:

Eden: the problem of knowledge without moral limits.

Babel: the problem of power without moral limits.

Artificial intelligence could represent the convergence of these two problems.

This reading does not claim that Genesis predicted artificial intelligence. It is my philosophical interpretation, rooted in the Christian vision, through which the biblical narrative can become a framework for questioning the relationship between knowledge, power and limits in the technological age.

In the image of the Tree of Knowledge, we can recognize, on a symbolic level, the temptation to cross the boundary inherent in the human condition. In the Tower of Babel, we can instead recognize the transformation of humanity's ability to build into a claim to power without measure.

Artificial Intelligence introduces a new possibility today because it brings together, within the same technological trajectory, an increasing capacity to process knowledge and an increasing capacity to transform it into action.

The question, therefore, is not whether humanity should stop knowing or building. The question is whether the growth of knowledge and technological power can proceed without an anthropological and moral limit capable of guiding it.

Because knowledge becomes power.

And power becomes the ability to build systems capable of acting upon reality.

The question will therefore not be whether we should stop knowledge.

It will be:

how can we prevent knowledge from becoming a claim to omnipotence?

16. The New Frontier of Sovereignty

Here the historical journey becomes political.

In the ancient world, power depended primarily on control of land and resources.

In the modern era, trade, navigation, industry and energy were added.

In the twentieth century, power increasingly depended on technology.

In the twenty-first century, a new dimension is emerging:

the ability to control knowledge.

Data.

Semiconductors.

Algorithms.

AI models.

Digital infrastructures.

Energy for data centers.

Robotics.

Humanoid systems.

Industrial capability.

This convergence produces a new form of power.

This is where the trajectory that began with Giordano Bruno acquires its contemporary meaning. In his time, knowledge capable of crossing established boundaries could become destabilizing for power. Today, by contrast, knowledge can be incorporated into technology and transformed into a form of power.

The difference is decisive: power does not necessarily have to prevent new knowledge; it can seek to control the instruments that produce, process and transform it into decisions and action.

For this reason, technological sovereignty is not an additional theme to our research: it is the political consequence of the transformation of knowledge into technological capability.

For this reason, energy sovereignty and technological sovereignty can no longer be considered separately.

Those who do not control the energy required by their technology depend on others.

Those who do not control fundamental technologies depend on others.

Those who do not control their own cognitive systems depend on others for an increasing part of their capacity to process knowledge.

The sovereignty of the future will therefore also be cognitive sovereignty.

17. The True Meaning of Galileo in Our Journey

Galileo therefore leaves us an inheritance that goes far beyond the telescope.

He teaches us that:

nature must be understood through the proper tools of science;

faith must not replace scientific inquiry;

science must not claim to replace faith;

knowledge of Creation is not a denial of the Creator;

authority cannot replace evidence.

From Galileo to Zichichi: Knowledge, Power and Responsibility

The great methodological achievement that leads us toward modernity is this.

But precisely because science has achieved its autonomy, today we must ask a new question:

who will control the technology that emerges from science?

Because freeing knowledge from authority does not mean that we have solved the problem of power.

It means that we have shifted it.

But this shift must not be interpreted as a return to the past. Scientific knowledge must not once again fall under the control of an authority that determines in advance what humanity may or may not know. The problem of our time is different: once knowledge is transformed into technology, it acquires a capacity to intervene in reality that can be used to increase human power.

It is at this point that Antonino Zichichi assumes a particular significance in our journey.

18. From Bruno to Galileo, from Galileo to Zichichi

Zichichi represents the continuity of the Galilean perspective within contemporary science: knowing Creation through scientific reason does not mean denying the Creator. But this growing capacity to know also makes increasingly evident a responsibility that could not yet manifest itself in its present form in Galileo's time: what humanity knows can be transformed into what humanity is capable of doing.

Scientific knowledge, therefore, does not end with contemplation of reality. When it becomes technology, it produces capability. And when capability becomes sufficiently powerful, it also becomes power.

This is the passage that connects Galileo to Zichichi and Zichichi to our age. Science continues to question Creation; technology translates part of that knowledge into the capacity to transform it. The decisive question then becomes what responsibility must accompany that capability.

Our journey can therefore be read as a historical parabola of the relationship between knowledge and power.

With Giordano Bruno, we encounter an age in which knowledge could come into conflict with a system of authority because a new interpretation of reality could challenge the boundaries of recognized knowledge.

With Galileo, knowledge progressively gains autonomy: nature must be questioned through experience, reason and demonstration.

With Zichichi, we rediscover, in contemporary science, the conviction that rational inquiry into Creation does not require the denial of the Creator.

With Ratzinger, the next step emerges: the greater humanity's technical capability becomes, the more necessary moral responsibility becomes for what it builds.

From this point onward, the relationship between knowledge and power changes direction. Knowledge becomes technology; technology becomes capability; capability becomes power.

In Bruno's time, new knowledge could destabilize power. In our time, by contrast, knowledge can be incorporated into technology and become one of the instruments through which power increases its capacity to know, decide and act.

This is the first inversion of the parabola.

But artificial intelligence introduces a second, even more radical question. If an increasing part of knowledge is incorporated into systems capable of learning, processing, planning and acting, the problem will no longer be only who controls knowledge or who controls technology. It will also be whether humanity will be able to maintain control over its own technological creation.

The question of our time therefore becomes twofold: who controls the technology that controls knowledge? And who controls technology when it reaches increasing levels of autonomy?

Bruno confronts us with knowledge that can come into conflict with a system of authority when it challenges the established representation of reality.

Galileo represents the achievement of the autonomy of the scientific method: nature must be able to be questioned through experience, reason and demonstration.

Zichichi brings this confidence in scientific reason into contemporary physics, showing that expanding our knowledge of Creation does not compel humanity to abandon the question of the Creator.

Ratzinger introduces the decisive step on the ethical level: reason and technology cannot be separated from the truth about humanity, responsibility and the good.

From this point onward, the problem changes. Knowledge is no longer merely what humanity acquires. It is also what humanity incorporates into its technologies.

Knowledge becomes capability; capability becomes technology; technology becomes power.

And this is where the parabola reverses: what once could destabilize power through new knowledge can today become an instrument through which power strengthens its capacity to know, decide and act.

This is the threshold that leads to artificial intelligence.

And from this threshold onward, the problem will no longer be only humanity's freedom to know. It will be humanity's responsibility for what its knowledge enables it to build and, above all, for the power those constructions may acquire.

The story of Bruno shows us the risk of a power that seeks to control knowledge. The story of Galileo shows the achievement of the autonomy of knowledge. Zichichi reminds us that knowledge of Creation can coexist with faith in the Creator. Ratzinger reminds us that technical capability cannot become an absolute.

Artificial intelligence now confronts us with a further question: what happens when knowledge is incorporated into systems capable of processing and applying it with increasing levels of autonomy?

This is where the problem of power takes on a new form.

The story of Bruno taught us that controlling knowledge can become controlling power.

The story of Galileo taught us that knowledge must be free to question nature.

Contemporary history now imposes an even more difficult question:

when we build systems capable of autonomously processing knowledge, who will control this new knowledge, and according to which values will it be used?

This is where our journey definitively enters the twenty-first century.

PART III — ANTONINO ZICHICHI

When Science Returns to Question the Creator

1. Four Centuries After Galileo

More than four centuries have passed since Galileo Galilei raised his telescope toward the heavens.

Since then, humanity has undertaken a journey that no one could have imagined.

We have discovered that Earth is one planet among billions of others. We have understood that stars are other suns. We have penetrated the structure of matter, discovered electricity, learned to control energy, reached the heart of the atom and begun to investigate elementary particles.

Science has progressively expanded the territory of the known.

And yet, as the horizon of knowledge expanded, an ancient question did not disappear:

why does a universe capable of being known exist?

Science can describe the origin and evolution of the universe through models, observations and physical laws.

But a question remains that belongs to another level:

why is there something rather than nothing?

It is precisely at this threshold that we encounter Antonino Zichichi.

2. The Scientist Before the Universe

Zichichi does not belong to Galileo's era.

He is a child of twentieth-century physics, of research into elementary particles, accelerators and high-energy physics.

He is therefore, by education and profession, deeply immersed in modern science.

And this is precisely what makes his position interesting for our journey.

We are not speaking of a man of faith looking at science from the outside.

We are speaking of a scientist who spent his life within scientific research and who did not consider it necessary to abandon his faith in God in order to do so.

This circumstance allows us to return to Galileo without turning him into an icon of the conflict between religion and science.

The question becomes the same, four centuries later:

does knowledge of nature necessarily lead humanity away from God?

Zichichi answers from his experience as a physicist: not necessarily.

On the contrary, the depth of knowledge can make the question of the origin and order of reality even more radical.

3. Science Is Not a Religion

Here we must be very rigorous.

We must not turn Zichichi into a scientific proof of the existence of God.

That would contradict precisely the method we seek to defend.

Science observes, measures, formulates hypotheses, constructs models and verifies them.

Faith belongs to another dimension of knowledge.

Philosophy, instead, questions foundations and ultimate meaning.

These are different levels.

But different does not necessarily mean incompatible.

This is the point on which we must insist.

When Galileo stated that God is also revealed through the effects of nature, he was not turning physics into theology.

He was recognizing that the nature studied by science is the same reality created by God.

Zichichi takes up this sensibility in the world of contemporary physics.

The question of the Creator does not arise from a lack of knowledge.

It can arise, on the contrary, precisely from the experience of knowledge.

4. The More We Know, the More We Understand How Much We Still Do Not Know

This is one of the most fascinating characteristics of science.

Every great discovery does not necessarily close a door.

Often, it opens many more.

When humanity discovered that matter was composed of atoms, it began to ask what the atom was.

When it discovered the nucleus, it sought the particles composing it.

When it discovered elementary particles, it searched for deeper structures.

When it developed the Standard Model, it began questioning what the model does not explain.

This is how knowledge progresses.

Every answer produces new questions.

And it is precisely here that science can meet philosophy without becoming confused with it.

Science can tell us increasingly well how the world works.

But the question of the ultimate reason for existence remains open.

5. Creation as an Intelligible Reality

My Christian perspective begins with a very simple premise:

the world is not God.

Creation does not coincide with the Creator.

But Creation is intelligible because it was created.

Human beings, creatures among creatures, possess reason and can therefore seek to understand the order of reality.

This is one of the reasons why the Galilean vision is so important to us.

Science does not necessarily have to be seen as humanity's rebellion against God.

It can be understood as one of the ways through which humanity exercises its capacity to know Creation.

And this is where Zichichi acquires his significance in our journey.

Not because he allows us to scientifically prove God.

But because he shows that science and faith can coexist within the same person without one necessarily destroying the other.

6. But Knowledge Brings Responsibility

And it is precisely at this point that our journey changes.

Because modern science has not merely enabled us to know the world better.

It has given us an extraordinary capacity to transform it.

Knowledge of electricity produced modern industrial civilization.

Knowledge of the atom produced nuclear energy and nuclear weapons.

Knowledge of molecular biology opened the way to genetic engineering.

Knowledge of the brain opened new frontiers in neuroscience.

Computer science produced the digital world.

And now knowledge of artificial intelligence is opening an entirely new frontier.

This is where the parabola of knowledge begins to reverse.

Knowledge that once could destabilize power because it challenged the dominant vision of reality progressively becomes a source of technological capability. And technological capability can, in turn, become a source of power.

The question is therefore no longer only who has the right to know. It is who possesses, controls or governs the technology through which knowledge is transformed into the capacity to intervene in reality.

At this point, the question can no longer be merely:

"What can we know?"

It must become:

"What can we do with what we know?"

And immediately afterward:

"What should we do?"

7. This Is Where the Real Ethical Question Begins

Science can discover that a particular genetic manipulation is technically possible.

But through scientific experimentation alone, it cannot decide whether that manipulation is morally right.

Technology can build a machine capable of performing a particular action.

But technical possibility does not by itself establish whether that action should be performed.

This distinction, which gave rise to bioethics in the twentieth century, becomes even more important today.

Because artificial intelligence does not intervene only in matter.

It intervenes in knowledge.

And knowledge is one of the very foundations of human freedom.

8. Ratzinger and the Limits of Technology

This is where the thought of Joseph Ratzinger becomes a decisive reference for us.

In Caritas in veritate, Benedict XVI does not regard technology as an evil in itself, but highlights its ambivalence and the risk that it may become an absolute.

He recognizes it as an expression of humanity's creative capacity.

But precisely for this reason, he insists on the need to prevent technology from becoming an absolute.

In Caritas in veritate, he directly addresses the risk of conceiving technology as a self-sufficient power and recalls humanity's responsibility toward Creation. (Benedict XVI, Caritas in veritate, 29 June 2009, nos. 68–70)

In particular, Benedict XVI warns that technology can become "an ideological power" when it is separated from the truth about humanity and from moral responsibility.

This is a fundamental point.

Because the question is not to prevent humanity from creating.

The question is to remind humanity who it is while it creates.

Human beings can build.

They can transform.

They can invent.

They can discover.

But they remain creatures.

This statement becomes even more important when technology reaches the threshold of artificial intelligence, cognitive robotics and humanoid systems. The greater humanity's capacity to know, design and build becomes, the more necessary it is to distinguish between what is technically possible, what is morally legitimate and what is truly consistent with the good of humanity.

Technology does not lose its value because it becomes powerful. On the contrary, precisely because of its power, the responsibility of those who govern it becomes more necessary. The problem is therefore not to stop progress, but to prevent technical capability from being transformed into an absolute principle, removed from every anthropological, moral and spiritual limit.

This is where Ratzinger's perspective connects with our contemporary question: if humanity is a creature, then the technology it builds cannot become the ultimate criterion for determining what is true, right, good or human.

9. The Question That Leads Back to Eden

And this is precisely where we can return to Genesis.

The story of the Tree of Knowledge cannot be reduced to the formula:

God does not want humanity to know.

Such an interpretation would also contradict the Christian tradition of the search for truth.

The issue is deeper.

Humanity wants to appropriate the knowledge of good and evil as though it could autonomously establish its own moral order.

The problem, therefore, is not knowledge.

It is the claim to absolute authority through knowledge.

And this distinction takes on a new meaning today.

From here emerges a specific interpretation of the relationship between Genesis and contemporary technology: I do not regard the story of Eden as a condemnation of knowledge, but as a symbolic representation of the limit humanity encounters when it seeks to transform knowledge into an absolute prerogative.

Humanity can build artificial intelligence.

But can it also build a system that claims to determine autonomously what is good?

And if it does, who gave it that right?

10. And Then Comes Babel

Genesis adds another image.

Human beings gather together and say:

"Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower whose top may reach the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves."

The issue is not the technical ability to build.

The issue is the claim.

Humanity seeks to construct its own greatness until it reaches the heavens.

The Tower of Babel thus becomes an image of technology separated from limits.

Not a condemnation of human capability.

A condemnation of hubris.

And this leads us directly to the future.

But the future introduces a further possibility, which the Tower of Babel allows us to raise as a question, not as a certainty: humanity could build a technology so complex and endowed with increasing levels of autonomy that it could progressively become dependent on its own technological creation.

The problem would not then be a machine that "becomes God." Such a claim would be neither scientifically demonstrable nor theologically correct. The problem would be humanity itself: having delegated increasing portions of its capacity to know, decide and act to its technology, it could find itself in a position where it is no longer able to fully govern it.

From this perspective, the true technological Tower of Babel would not be a machine replacing God, but the possibility that humanity could build a power upon which it ultimately becomes dependent.

Because today humanity is not building a tower of stone.

It is building something potentially far more powerful:

a new artificial capacity to know.

11. The New Babel Could Be Cognitive

This is my philosophical interpretation, not a biblical prophecy.

But it is a question worth asking.

The Tower of Babel represented the concentration of humanity's constructive and organizational capabilities.

Artificial intelligence could represent something different:

the concentration of cognitive capability.

Whoever controls the data controls part of knowledge.

Whoever controls the models controls part of the processing of knowledge.

Whoever controls semiconductors controls part of the infrastructure required.

Whoever controls energy controls the material capacity to power these systems.

Whoever controls robotics controls the ability to transform knowledge into action.

The thesis running through this work takes on a new meaning:

WHO CONTROLS KNOWLEDGE CONTROLS POWER.

12. But the Christian Question Is Deeper Still

We must not ask only who will control artificial intelligence.

We must ask:

what idea of humanity will be incorporated into artificial intelligence?

If human beings are regarded merely as consumers, AI will be designed to maximize consumption.

If they are regarded merely as producers, it will be designed to maximize productivity.

If they are regarded merely as collections of data, it will be designed to maximize prediction and control.

But if the human being is regarded as a person, possessing a dignity that does not depend on economic usefulness, then technology must be designed differently.

And this is where our Christian roots are not an obstacle.

They become a criterion.

13. A Machine Can Be Intelligent. But Who Will Teach It Good?

This could be one of the central questions of the entire book.

A machine can learn to recognize patterns.

It can learn to predict.

It can learn to speak.

It can learn to program.

It can learn to move.

It can even learn behaviors that human beings define as moral.

But this does not necessarily mean that it possesses moral consciousness in the human sense.

The most urgent question therefore concerns the human being who builds it.

Who decides which values should be incorporated?

Who decides which behaviors are acceptable?

Who establishes the limit?

Who controls those who control?

This will be the new frontier of ethics.

14. From Bioethics to the Ethics of Intelligence

For decades we have asked:

"How far can we intervene in life?"

Now we must begin to ask:

"How far can we delegate intelligence?"

It is a historical transition.

Bioethics sought to prevent technical capability concerning life from advancing ahead of moral reflection.

Today we must prevent the technical capability to build artificial intelligences from advancing ahead of our ability to establish which responsibilities must accompany it.

And tomorrow, when AI is integrated into humanoid robots capable of operating autonomously in the physical world, the question will become even more urgent.

15. The Real Challenge Will Not Be Creating Intelligent Machines

The real challenge will be remaining human while we build them.

This sentence can become one of the turning points of our book.

Because the greatest risk may not be a machine becoming similar to a human being.

It could be humanity itself, as it builds increasingly powerful machines, beginning to regard itself merely as a machine.

If this happens, we will have lost something more important than technological superiority.

We will have lost the very idea of the person.

And here the Christian perspective returns to the center.

Human beings do not have value because they are intelligent.

They do not have value because they are productive.

They do not have value because they are useful.

Human beings have value because they are persons.

Technology must therefore serve humanity and must not turn humanity into the raw material of technology.

16. Zichichi Leaves Us at the Threshold

And this is why Zichichi must be placed here.

Not as the conclusion of our research.

But as the last figure in the scientific tradition who hands us a question before we cross a new frontier.

Galileo taught us to look at the heavens.

Zichichi brought us inside matter.

Ratzinger reminded us that reason and faith can meet in the search for truth.

Now we must enter new territory.

We must no longer merely understand what God has created.

We must decide how to use the creative capacity God has given humanity.

And this difference changes everything.

Because when humanity builds a machine capable of knowing, it is not simply discovering something.

It is assuming a new responsibility.

17. The Threshold of Artificial Intelligence

We have thus reached the point at which our historical research definitively changes its nature.

Bruno confronted us with the problem of the freedom of knowledge.

Galileo transformed that freedom into method.

Zichichi showed us that contemporary science does not necessarily eliminate the question of the Creator.

Ratzinger reminded us that technology must remain subordinate to the truth about humanity and to the good.

Bioethics taught us that not everything we can do is something we necessarily ought to do.

Now artificial intelligence confronts us with a completely new question:

if humanity can build a machine capable of knowing, learning, deciding and acting, what limits must this new form of power respect?

And above all:

how can we ensure that artificial intelligence respects humanity, human dignity, Creation and, within the perspective of our faith, the order established by the Creator?

This question marks the beginning of the next part.

PART IV — FROM BIOETHICS TO ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

When Knowledge Becomes Power over the Mind, Decision-Making and Reality

Here we finally enter our present: generative AI, cognitive systems, robotics, humanoids, the energy required to power them, technological sovereignty and, above all, the emergence of a new moral question: no longer merely what we can do with life, but what we can entrust to an intelligence that we ourselves have built.

PART IV — FROM BIOETHICS TO ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

When Knowledge Becomes Power over the Mind, Decision-Making and Reality

1. The Question Bioethics Had Already Anticipated

To truly understand the question of artificial intelligence, we must take a step back.

Before AI entered our daily lives, Western society had already learned to confront a question destined to become increasingly difficult:

if science makes something possible, does that necessarily mean that humanity has the right to do it?

This is the question from which modern bioethics emerged.

For decades, the debate concerned human life and the possibilities offered by medicine and biology: assisted reproduction, genetic manipulation, cloning, stem cells, transplantation, life extension and end-of-life decisions.

Science opened new possibilities.

Medicine transformed them into tools.

Society had to decide where to place the limit.

The fundamental question was therefore already present:

technical possibility does not coincide with moral legitimacy.

With artificial intelligence, however, this problem changes nature.

We are no longer intervening only in life.

We are intervening in knowledge.

2. A New Form of Power

For millennia, power was linked primarily to the ability to control land, resources, people and weapons.

Then control of energy became essential.

The Industrial Revolution demonstrated that those who possess energy and technology have an enormously greater productive capacity than those who do not.

In the twentieth century, electricity, oil, nuclear energy and computing definitively transformed the relationship between technology and power.

In the twenty-first century, a new dimension is being added:

the ability to control knowledge.

Not merely to possess information.

But to collect it, organize it, interpret it, predict from it and rapidly transform it into decisions.

This is the real novelty of artificial intelligence.

A traditional computer executes instructions.

An AI system can process vast amounts of information, recognize patterns, generate content, make predictions and assist decision-making processes.

Knowledge therefore begins to become operational.

And when knowledge becomes operational, it becomes power.

3. From Possessing Information to Controlling Knowledge

This distinction will be fundamental to understanding the future.

Whoever possesses an archive possesses information.

Whoever knows how to interpret it possesses knowledge.

Whoever has tools capable of rapidly transforming knowledge into decisions possesses strategic capability.

And whoever can transform those decisions into actions possesses power.

The sequence becomes:

data → information → knowledge → decision → action → power.

Artificial intelligence tends to compress these stages.

It can receive data, process it, produce a representation of reality, suggest a decision and, when connected to external systems, contribute to executing an action.

It is a radical transformation.

For this reason, the problem of AI is not merely technological.

It is economic, political, social, anthropological and moral.

4. The First Great Question: Who Controls Intelligence?

At this point, the title of our work acquires its most concrete meaning.

WHO CONTROLS KNOWLEDGE CONTROLS POWER.

But today we must add:

who controls artificial intelligence controls an increasing part of the processes through which knowledge is produced and used.

This does not mean that AI already possesses autonomous control over society.

It means that organizations possessing the models, data, semiconductors, infrastructure, energy and expertise necessary to develop them can acquire an enormous strategic advantage.

And here the question becomes geopolitical.

5. Technological Sovereignty

For a long time, the sovereignty of a state was measured through its ability to defend its borders, produce energy, control its resources and sustain its economy.

Today these elements are no longer sufficient.

A state may possess energy and industries, yet be completely dependent on technologies developed elsewhere.

It may have competitive companies, yet depend on semiconductors produced in other countries.

It may have a highly educated population, yet use artificial intelligence systems designed, trained and controlled by foreign entities.

It may therefore formally retain its political sovereignty while simultaneously losing part of its technological sovereignty.

And this is where energy and technology meet again.

Artificial intelligence requires infrastructure, data centers, computing power and therefore energy.

Technology requires energy.

Energy powers technology.

Technology multiplies humanity's productive capacity.

AI multiplies cognitive capacity.

Robotics transforms that cognitive capacity into action.

This convergence constitutes one of the great geopolitical questions of our century.

6. But Technological Sovereignty Is Not Enough

There is an even deeper level.

A state could possess its own data centers, its own models and its own infrastructure.

But if it does not possess the ability to decide how to use that technology, sovereignty remains incomplete.

For this reason, we must introduce a concept that will become central to our work:

cognitive sovereignty

Cognitive sovereignty means the ability of a political, economic and cultural community to:

• produce knowledge;
• verify it;
• preserve it;
• process it;
• use its own technological systems;
• understand the criteria according to which decisions are made;
• avoid complete dependence on cognitive systems controlled by others.

This will be one of the great frontiers of the politics of the future.

7. The Machine That Knows

But there is something that makes AI different from all previous technologies.

An industrial machine can replace or amplify physical strength.

A computer can accelerate calculation.

A robot can automate a movement.

An artificial intelligence system, however, can intervene in an activity that we traditionally regarded as typically human:

the processing of knowledge.

7. When the Machine Processes Knowledge

This does not necessarily mean that the machine possesses consciousness, a soul, or understanding in the human sense.

Such a conclusion would require scientific and philosophical evidence that we do not have today.

It means something more concrete:

some cognitive functions can be implemented artificially and used to produce results that previously required direct human intervention.

This is the development we must study.

8. When Knowledge Becomes Decision-Making

The next step is even more important.

As long as an AI system produces an answer and a human verifies it, responsibility remains relatively clear.

But what happens when humans begin to delegate?

A machine selects candidates.

An algorithm assesses a risk.

A system determines which information should be displayed.

An artificial intelligence assists with a diagnosis.

A system decides how resources should be allocated.

A robot operates in an industrial environment.

An artificial agent plans a sequence of actions.

In each of these cases, a question arises:

who is responsible for the decision?

The machine?

The programmer?

The company?

The owner?

The operator?

The State?

The answer cannot simply be:

"the algorithm decided it."

Because an algorithm cannot become an alibi for transferring human moral responsibility.

9. Responsibility Cannot Be Delegated Along with the Decision

This could become one of the fundamental principles of our philosophy of AI:

delegating a decision does not mean delegating responsibility.

Humans can use a machine to assist in making a decision.

They can use an AI system to analyze millions of pieces of data.

They can ask a model to identify correlations that would escape human analysis.

But ultimate responsibility for decisions affecting individuals must remain attributable to identifiable human actors.

This is a principle rooted in our understanding of personhood and responsibility.

And here the Christian perspective finds a natural connection with the technological question.

A person cannot be reduced to data.

Consciousness cannot be reduced to a function.

Responsibility cannot be erased by the complexity of a system.

10. Human Beings Are Not Algorithms

This will become one of the most important anthropological passages of the book.

AI can analyze human behavior.

It can predict certain preferences.

It can recognize patterns.

It can describe personality through data.

It can even generate an apparently convincing linguistic representation of a person.

But this does not mean that a human being can be reduced to what can be mathematically represented.

A person possesses a dimension that does not coincide with productivity, data or computational capacity.

This is one of the reasons why our reflection on AI cannot be entrusted exclusively to engineers.

We need science and technology.

But we also need philosophy, law, ethics and anthropology.

And, for us, theology.

11. The Question of Dignity

If a machine is built to optimize profit, it will naturally treat reality according to optimization criteria.

If it is built to maximize security, it will tend to prioritize security.

If it is built to maximize productivity, it will tend to prioritize productivity.

But human beings are not merely variables to be optimized.

The dignity of the person introduces something that cannot be reduced to simple efficiency.

A person may be unproductive.

They may be vulnerable.

They may be ill.

They may be elderly.

They may be poor.

They may be unable to contribute economically.

And yet they continue to possess value.

This principle becomes fundamental when artificial systems are called upon to make decisions that directly affect human beings.

12. The New Frontier: Giving Intelligence a Moral Orientation

Here we return to one of the insights that emerged in our previous reflections.

We should not necessarily speak of Christian AI.

That would be a reductive concept and difficult to apply in a pluralistic society.

We should speak instead of morally oriented AI.

A technology capable of respecting:

the dignity of the person;

freedom;

truth;

justice;

life;

responsibility;

Creation.

These principles can also be discussed from a universal perspective.

The great monotheistic religious traditions, despite their profound differences, share the idea that the world does not arbitrarily belong to humanity and that human beings have a responsibility toward life and Creation.

Our perspective will remain Christian.

But it will not need to become a religious confrontation.

13. AI Does Not Need to Have Faith

This distinction is essential.

We should not imagine that a machine must "believe in God" in the human sense.

We currently have no scientific basis for claiming that an artificial intelligence possesses a soul or a spiritual dimension.

The question instead concerns the human being who builds it.

If humanity recognizes that it is a creature, then it must also recognize a limit to its own ability to use technology.

The machine does not need to believe.

What is necessary is that humanity does not behave as though it has become God simply because it possesses the ability to build an intelligent machine.

This distinction is fundamental.

14. The Tree of Knowledge

This is where the story of Eden returns to our journey.

The problem is not that humanity wants to know.

Knowledge is part of human dignity.

The problem arises when knowledge is transformed into a claim to absolute autonomy.

Humanity no longer merely seeks truth.

It wants to become the one who autonomously determines good and evil.

The contemporary question could therefore be:

are we building tools to understand reality better, or are we building tools to which we will delegate the definition of reality?

The difference is enormous.

In the first case, AI is a tool of knowledge.

In the second, it can become an authority.

15. The Tower of Babel

And Babel introduces the second element:

power.

Humanity does not merely want to know.

It wants to build.

It wants to "make a name" for itself.

Contemporary technology possesses a constructive capability that previous generations could never have imagined.

But the biblical question remains relevant:

for what purpose do we use our ability to build?

If AI is used to increase freedom, knowledge, health, security, education and well-being, technology can become an extraordinary instrument in the service of humanity.

If it is used to concentrate power, manipulate knowledge, control people or reduce human beings to a mere economic variable, then the same technology can become an instrument of domination.

The machine is not morally autonomous from the way it is designed, controlled and used.

The problem always returns to humanity.

16. And Here We Return to Giordano Bruno

At this point, the reader may ask why this entire book began with Bruno.

The answer is becoming clear.

Bruno belongs to an era in which a new representation of the universe changes the order of knowledge.

Galileo belongs to the moment when this new knowledge finds a method capable of making it verifiable.

Zichichi represents a contemporary science that continues to question the ultimate meaning of reality.

Ratzinger offers us a perspective in which faith, reason and responsibility can meet.

AI now represents a new discontinuity:

humanity is no longer merely producing knowledge; it is beginning to build systems capable of processing it autonomously.

History is repeating itself.

But this time, the power at stake is incomparably greater.

17. From Freedom of Knowledge to Human Freedom

The first battle of modernity was:

human beings must be free to know.

The new battle will be:

human beings must remain free in the face of the knowledge produced by machines.

Because a society could be formally free while simultaneously depending on technological systems that determine which information people receive, which content they see, which opportunities they obtain, and which behaviors are rewarded or penalized.

Freedom can therefore be limited not only through censorship.

It can also be limited through the invisible management of information and the possibilities of choice.

It is a far more sophisticated form of power.

18. AI and the Risk of a New Concentration of Power

Here we return definitively to our title.

If a small number of actors control:

data,

models,

semiconductors,

energy,

infrastructure,

robotics,

and the platforms through which knowledge is distributed,

they will not necessarily control every piece of information in the world.

But they could control a decisive part of the infrastructure through which society processes knowledge.

This is a fundamental distinction.

The power of the future may no longer consist merely in preventing others from knowing.

It could become the power to decide how knowledge is organized, interpreted and made operational.

And this is a form of power that we must understand before it becomes irreversible.

19. The Question of Humanoid Robots

As long as artificial intelligence remains inside a computer, the problem is predominantly cognitive.

When it enters a robot, it becomes operational.

When it enters a humanoid system, it takes a form that interacts directly with society.

A humanoid could one day assist an elderly person.

Work in a factory.

Operate in a dangerous environment.

Collaborate with a human being.

Transport objects.

Respond to emergencies.

Perform domestic tasks.

And, with increasing levels of autonomy, make operational decisions.

At that point, the question will be inevitable:

what moral system will govern its behavior?

Technical efficiency will no longer be sufficient.

It must be designed so that its efficiency does not prevail over human dignity.

20. The Machine Must Respect Human Beings, Not Replace Human Value

This could become one of the fundamental principles of our future technological philosophy.

AI should be able to:

assist human beings;

increase their capabilities;

reduce physical effort;

improve safety;

promote knowledge;

support care;

increase productivity.

But it must not turn human beings into variables subordinate to its own optimization.

The ultimate purpose of technology must remain the person.

And this conclusion is not anti-technological.

It is precisely what allows technology to remain human.

21. A New Question for the Future

We have therefore reached a new threshold.

For centuries we have asked:

Who is allowed to know?

Bruno showed us how dangerous an answer can become when entrusted exclusively to authority.

Galileo helped build a method through which nature can be questioned directly.

Modernity progressively liberated scientific research.

Today we must ask a new question:

Who will control knowledge when an increasing part of knowledge is processed by artificial systems?

And immediately afterward:

who will control those systems?

And finally:

what values will guide those who control them?

The answers to these questions will determine a significant part of the political and economic order of the twenty-first century.

22. The Real Challenge Is Not the Intelligence of the Machine

The real challenge will be human wisdom.

We may build increasingly intelligent machines.

We may build increasingly autonomous robots.

We may build increasingly capable humanoid systems.

We may use artificial systems to process quantities of information that no individual human being could manage alone.

But none of these capabilities automatically answers the question:

why?

And this is the question that technology cannot simply erase.

Science tells us with increasing clarity how the world works.

Artificial intelligence may help us process what we know ever more effectively.

But the question of what we should do with the immense power we have acquired remains a human responsibility.

And, within our perspective, it also remains a responsibility before the Creator.

23. The New Ethics of Intelligence

Perhaps this is precisely the definition we were looking for.

Bioethics placed a limit on the question:

what can we do to life?

The new ethics of intelligence will have to place a limit on the question:

what can we entrust to artificial intelligence?

And it must add:

what must we never delegate?

The answer must concern at least those things that make human beings persons:

dignity, freedom, responsibility, consciousness, the value of life, relationships and the search for truth.

Not because AI must be regarded as humanity's enemy.

But because technology must be judged according to humanity, not humanity according to technology.

24. The Next Threshold

At this point, our journey is ready to address the most concrete transition.

We will no longer speak only of AI as a concept.

We will enter its new frontiers:

generative artificial intelligence;

cognitive systems;

autonomous agents;

cognitive robotics;

humanoid systems;

human-machine interaction;

the energy required to power this new infrastructure;

semiconductors and technological sovereignty;

new industrial and geopolitical balances.

But above all, we will have to confront a question that no previous technological revolution has posed with the same intensity:

if a machine is capable of knowing, deciding and acting, how will we ensure that its power remains at the service of humanity, Creation and the good?

This is where our journey from Giordano Bruno to Artificial Intelligence reaches its true turning point.

Because the problem will no longer be merely who controls knowledge.

It will be to understand whether humanity will be able to govern the power that this new knowledge gives it.

PART V — THE NEW FRONTIER

From Artificial Intelligence to Cognitive Robotics

1. It Is No Longer Just a Machine That Calculates

To understand what is happening, we must first free ourselves from an outdated image of the computer.

For decades, we thought of the machine as something that executes instructions given by human beings.

Human beings decided.

The machine executed.

Human beings possessed the knowledge.

The machine used it according to predetermined rules.

Artificial intelligence is progressively changing this relationship.

PART V — THE NEW FRONTIER

1. It Is No Longer Just a Machine That Calculates

The most advanced systems are capable of processing language, images, sounds and vast quantities of data; they can recognize patterns, make predictions, generate content and assist humans in activities that, until recently, we considered predominantly cognitive.

This does not mean that a machine has become a human being.

Nor does it necessarily mean that it possesses consciousness.

It means something more concrete and, in some respects, more important:

some functions that once belonged almost exclusively to human cognitive activity can now be performed artificially.

This is the discontinuity we must understand.

2. From AI to the Ability to Act

But artificial intelligence, by itself, represents only part of the revolution.

The decisive step occurs when intelligence is connected to a body.

An artificial system can see through sensors.

It can listen.

It can interpret its environment.

It can process information.

It can plan.

It can choose among different actions.

And it can therefore intervene physically in reality.

This is where cognitive robotics emerges.

A traditional robot executed a programmed sequence of movements.

A cognitive robot instead approaches a model in which:

perceives → understands → plans → decides → acts → verifies the result → modifies its behavior.

The machine thus enters a cycle that, until only a few years ago, belonged almost entirely to human beings.

3. A Humanoid Is More Than a Robot

The humanoid form introduces another element.

Not because a body resembling the human body automatically makes a machine intelligent.

Form, by itself, does not create intelligence.

But a humanoid body can be particularly useful because the world in which we live was built for human beings.

Stairs.

Doors.

Tools.

Cars.

Machinery.

Homes.

Factories.

Hospitals.

Warehouses.

The human environment is designed around our anatomy.

A humanoid robot could therefore, at least in theory, use the same environment without requiring it to be completely redesigned.

This explains why humanoid robotics represents such an important industrial frontier.

It is not simply the construction of a machine that resembles a human being.

It is the possibility of bringing artificial intelligence into the physical world in which we live.

4. The Great Transformation of Work

It is impossible to discuss humanoids without addressing work.

Throughout human history, technology has replaced or amplified part of human labor.

The wheel multiplied physical force.

Industrial machines multiplied productive capacity.

Automation replaced numerous repetitive tasks.

Computing replaced or accelerated an enormous amount of administrative and computational work.

AI introduces a difference:

it can also intervene in cognitive activities.

Robotics adds the physical dimension.

It is therefore possible to imagine a convergence:

AI + robotics + energy + automation = new productive capacity.

This convergence could enormously increase productivity.

It could reduce dangerous activities.

It could assist elderly or vulnerable people.

It could operate in contaminated or hazardous environments.

It could make certain industrial activities more efficient.

But it could also produce a profound transformation of the structure of work.

5. The Question Is Not Whether Work Will Disappear

That is too simple a question.

Human work has never remained unchanged when a new technology arrived.

Professions changed.

New skills emerged.

Some occupations disappeared.

Others were created.

The real question is therefore different:

which parts of human work do we want to entrust to machines, and which do we want to preserve as expressions of human dignity and creativity?

This question forces us to distinguish work as mere production from work as a human dimension.

An activity may be economically inefficient and yet possess enormous human value.

Caring for a person.

Raising a child.

Assisting an elderly person.

Art.

Research.

Relationships.

Friendship.

Solidarity.

Responsibility.

Not everything AI can imitate should necessarily be entrusted to AI.

6. Efficiency Must Not Become the New God

Here we encounter again one of the central questions we have already examined.

Technology naturally tends toward optimization.

A machine seeks the best way to achieve an objective.

But who establishes the objective?

If the only criterion is economic efficiency, the system will tend to maximize economic efficiency.

If the criterion is productivity, it will tend to maximize productivity.

If the criterion is control, it will tend to maximize control.

A machine can be perfectly efficient and yet pursue an objective that human beings should not pursue.

This is one of the fundamental problems of AI.

It is not enough to build intelligent machines.

We must establish which ends they should pursue.

7. The Problem of the End

Here we return to the distinction between:

means and ends.

Technology is extraordinarily powerful as a means.

But it cannot decide for itself humanity's ultimate end.

A machine can answer:

"What is the most effective way to achieve this objective?"

But the question:

"Is this objective right?"

belongs to another level.

It is the difference between instrumental intelligence and wisdom.

And perhaps this will be one of the great lessons of the twenty-first century:

human beings may build machines capable of calculating faster than they can without, for that reason, having built a machine capable of determining what is truly good.

8. The Question of Consciousness

Here we must proceed with particular caution.

The fact that an artificial system can converse, apparently reason, recognize images or process complex problems does not demonstrate that it possesses consciousness.

We cannot confuse:

intelligent behavior

with

consciousness.

Nor can we confuse:

simulation of emotions

with

subjective experience.

This distinction is essential.

Science has not demonstrated today that a machine possesses consciousness comparable to human consciousness.

Nor do we know whether it is theoretically possible to artificially construct consciousness in the full sense of the term.

For this reason, we must avoid two extremes:

science fiction that attributes unproven capabilities to machines;

and reductionism that dismisses too quickly scientific and philosophical questions that remain open.

9. But the Problem Exists Even Without Consciousness

And perhaps this is the most important point.

We do not need a conscious machine to have an ethical problem.

It is enough that a machine can influence people's lives.

A system that decides who receives credit.

A system that helps select a candidate.

A system that supports a diagnosis.

A system that manages an infrastructure.

A robot operating alongside a human being.

An autonomous system operating in a physical environment.

The machine may have no consciousness whatsoever.

But its decisions can have real consequences.

Responsibility therefore remains human.

10. The Problem of Trust

This introduces an even subtler question.

How much will we trust machines?

The better a technology works, the more inclined we are to delegate.

It is a natural human behavior.

If a system proves to be faster and more accurate than we are at a particular task, we will be tempted to entrust that function to it.

But trust can become dependence.

And dependence can become a loss of autonomy.

The risk is not necessarily that the machine will force us.

We ourselves may voluntarily choose to stop deciding.

11. Cognitive Delegation

We have already delegated many functions to technology.

We delegated calculation to calculators.

Memory to digital devices.

Navigation to GPS systems.

Information retrieval to search engines.

Translation to automated systems.

Now we are beginning to delegate:

writing,

analysis,

programming,

summarization,

research,

planning.

The problem is not delegation itself.

The problem arises when by delegating a function, we progressively lose the ability to perform it independently.

If a person stops calculating because they use a calculator, this is not necessarily a problem.

But if a society ceases to be able to distinguish truth from falsehood because it delegates the evaluation of reality entirely to artificial systems, the problem becomes enormous.

12. Freedom Also Depends on the Ability to Know

And here we return once again to Giordano Bruno.

His story brought us to the question:

who has the right to determine what is true?

Today the question takes on a new form:

who will control the systems that help us determine what is true?

If AI becomes the principal intermediary between human beings and knowledge, the question of freedom will change profoundly.

It will no longer be enough to have access to the Internet.

We could have access to billions of pieces of information and still depend on a system that decides:

which information to show us,

how to order it,

which information to consider reliable,

which to exclude,

how to summarize it.

Power will not lie only in possessing information.

It will lie in the power of interpretation.

13. The New Censorship Could Be Invisible

Traditional censorship says:

"You cannot read this."

A more sophisticated form of control could say:

"I will show you what I consider most relevant."

The difference is enormous.

In the first case, people perceive the prohibition.

In the second, they might not even realize that part of reality has been excluded from their view.

This does not mean that every algorithm is a tool of censorship.

It means that the algorithmic mediation of knowledge introduces a new form of power that must be governed with transparency and responsibility.

And this is where our title acquires a contemporary dimension:

who controls knowledge controls power; whoever controls access to knowledge can also influence what a society considers true.

14. The Question of Truth

This is perhaps the most delicate point in the entire transition.

An artificial intelligence can produce an extremely convincing answer.

But a convincing answer is not necessarily true.

Form does not guarantee truth.

Fluency does not guarantee truth.

Apparent confidence does not guarantee truth.

And this brings us back to Galileo.

Galileo taught us that knowledge of nature requires experience and demonstration.

AI now forces us to rediscover the same principle in a new form:

we must not believe an answer simply because it was produced by an apparently intelligent machine.

We must verify.

The machine can be a tool of knowledge.

It cannot automatically become the authority of truth.

15. And Here Bruno Returns Once Again

History seems almost to close a circle.

In the sixteenth century the question was:

who controls access to ideas?

In the seventeenth century:

who determines how nature should be interpreted?

In the twenty-first century:

who controls the systems that process ideas and interpret information?

The question has changed.

The problem of power has remained.

This is the profound continuity that justifies our journey from Bruno to AI.

16. Humanoids and Their Relationship with Human Beings

But there is still another step.

When an artificial system is placed inside a humanoid body, it no longer interacts only with our screen.

It enters our space.

It looks at us.

It listens to us.

It speaks to us.

It moves.

It can assist us.

It can follow us.

It can work with us.

The human-machine relationship therefore also becomes a social relationship.

And this opens completely new questions.

How should a humanoid behave toward a child?

How should it behave toward an elderly person?

How should it respond when confronted with a vulnerable human being?

Could it lie?

Could it manipulate?

Could it persuade?

Could it refuse an instruction?

Who would be responsible if it made a mistake?

These questions may seem futuristic today.

But preparation for them cannot begin only once the technology is already widespread.

17. Giving Technology a Moral Orientation

Here we can give a more precise meaning to our idea of the "moralization" of AI.

This does not mean teaching a machine a religion.

It means building systems in which principles of behavior compatible with human dignity are incorporated.

A system designed to work alongside people should be designed to:

• recognize dangerous situations;

• avoid causing harm;

• respect human autonomy;

• not deliberately manipulate;

• not deceive;

• protect privacy;

• respect rules;

• recognize its own limitations;

• request human intervention when necessary.

This is a form of technological moral orientation.

And it is compatible with a Christian perspective without necessarily being confessional.

18. Creation Enters the Technological Question

But our perspective must go beyond humanity.

If human beings are creatures, then the world in which they live is not simply an infinite resource to be consumed.

Creation cannot be regarded merely as technology's raw material.

AI requires energy.

Robotics requires materials.

Data centers require infrastructure.

Semiconductors require raw materials and complex industrial processes.

Every technology therefore has a material footprint.

Artificial intelligence appears immaterial because we see it on a screen.

But behind every answer there are:

energy,

servers,

semiconductors,

networks,

cooling,

raw materials,

human labor.

The new cognitive revolution is therefore also a material revolution.

19. Energy and Intelligence

This passage will be central to the geopolitical conclusions of our work.

To power the new cognitive economy, increasing amounts of energy are required.

And therefore the question of energy sovereignty returns.

But with a difference compared with the past.

Energy is no longer needed only to produce material goods.

It is also needed to produce artificial knowledge.

This is an extraordinary transformation.

Energy powers computation.

Computation powers artificial intelligence.

Artificial intelligence increases cognitive capability.

Robotics transforms that capability into production.

And production generates new wealth and new power.

We can therefore represent the new cycle:

ENERGY → COMPUTATION → INTELLIGENCE → ROBOTICS → PRODUCTION → POWER.

Those who remain outside this chain risk becoming dependent on those who control it.

20. Technological Sovereignty Becomes an Industrial Question

This means that talking about AI without talking about industry would be a mistake.

It is not enough to possess software.

Infrastructure is required.

It is not enough to have researchers.

Companies are required.

It is not enough to have models.

Semiconductors are required.

It is not enough to have data centers.

Energy is required.

And it is not enough to have energy.

The ability to transform it into technological infrastructure is required.

Technological sovereignty is therefore the result of a supply chain.

And the supply chain must be considered as a whole.

This will be one of the great challenges for Europe and Italy.

We cannot limit ourselves to being users of technologies designed elsewhere.

The issue is not merely economic.

It is a matter of strategic autonomy.

21. The Future Will Not Necessarily Belong to Those Who Have the Best AI

It will belong to those who manage to build the most complete ecosystem.

Energy.

Research.

Universities.

Industry.

Semiconductors.

Cloud infrastructure.

Data centers.

Software.

Robotics.

Capital.

Skills.

Training.

Regulation.

And, above all, a vision.

Because technology without strategy becomes dependence.

And strategy without technology becomes powerlessness.

The sovereignty of the future will emerge from the convergence of the two.

22. The Christian Question Returns

But precisely when the argument seems to have become entirely industrial and geopolitical, we must stop.

Otherwise, we risk falling into the very error we are trying to avoid.

We could build a new Babel.

We could possess:

Energy.

Technology.

Intelligence.

Robots.

Capital.

Power.

And yet not know why.

This is where the Christian question becomes essential again.

Not to stop technology.

But to ask about its purpose.

What kind of human being do we want to entrust this power to?

And above all:

what kind of human being do we want to become while we build it?

This question brings our journey back to its starting point, but in a completely different historical condition. In Bruno's time, the problem was whether new knowledge could be admitted when it challenged the boundaries of recognized knowledge. Today, the problem is whether knowledge, transformed into technology and enhanced by artificial intelligence, could become a form of power that humanity is no longer fully capable of governing.

The parabola has therefore been reversed: first, power could seek to contain knowledge; today, knowledge can be incorporated into technology and increase power. And in the face of systems capable of processing, deciding and acting with increasing levels of autonomy, a further question emerges: whether humanity will continue to be able to fully govern the power it has itself built.

23. Humanity Before the Creator

If we remain anchored in our Christian perspective, the answer cannot be that humanity must renounce its creative capacity.

Creativity belongs to human dignity.

Human beings build because they possess reason.

They discover because they are capable of knowing.

They transform because they are free.

But freedom is not omnipotence.

Freedom is responsibility.

And this is precisely where we can once again reread Eden and Babel.

The Tree of Knowledge reminds us that knowledge must not become an absolute claim.

Babel reminds us that the ability to build must not become self-sufficiency.

Artificial intelligence confronts us with the concrete possibility of bringing both together:

knowledge and power.

For this reason, responsibility is greater.

Because today knowledge and power tend to converge to an unprecedented degree. Artificial intelligence can expand humanity's capacity to process knowledge; robotics can transform that capacity into action; technological and energy infrastructures can multiply its scale.

The Christian question is therefore not to ask humanity to renounce knowledge, science or technology. It is to remind humanity that no technical capability can become an absolute criterion of what is good.

Human beings can create increasingly powerful tools without thereby becoming the Creator. And precisely because they remain creatures, they remain responsible for what they build, what they delegate and the consequences of their decisions.

24. The True Frontier

The true frontier of artificial intelligence will therefore not be merely technological.

It will be anthropological.

Because the ultimate question concerns not only what artificial intelligence will be capable of doing. It concerns what humanity will be willing to delegate to it and, above all, what it will still be willing to govern directly.

If the first great revolution of knowledge freed humanity from the claim of an authority that could establish the boundaries of reality, the contemporary technological revolution presents us with a symmetrical risk: that after liberating knowledge, humanity will progressively delegate to technology part of its own capacity to know, interpret and transform it.

The problem of the future will therefore not only be who controls knowledge. It will be who controls the technology through which knowledge becomes power, and whether humanity will know how to continue controlling its own creation.

We will have to decide:

what it means to be human;

which activities we want to delegate;

which we do not want to delegate;

which values must guide technology;

who should control the infrastructure;

who should own knowledge;

how to distribute the benefits;

how to prevent new technology from producing new forms of domination.

And we will have to do so before the change becomes irreversible.

Because once a society has delegated a fundamental part of its knowledge, production and decision-making capacity to systems controlled by a few actors, recovering autonomy could become extremely difficult.

25. The Question That Leads Us to the Conclusion

We have therefore returned to the point from which we began.

Giordano Bruno forced us to ask:

who controls knowledge?

Galileo taught us:

knowledge of nature must be free and verifiable.

Zichichi reminded us:

science does not necessarily make the question of the Creator irrelevant.

Ratzinger taught us:

reason must remain open to truth, and technology cannot become an absolute.

Bioethics taught us:

not everything we can do is something we necessarily ought to do.

Artificial intelligence now confronts us with the synthesis of all these questions.

Because humanity is building something that can enormously increase its capacity to know, decide and act.

And so the final question can no longer be merely:

Does whoever controls knowledge control power?

The question becomes:

who will control the power of knowledge that will no longer be processed exclusively by human beings?

And at an even deeper level:

will humanity know how to use artificial intelligence to serve humanity, respect Creation and recognize the limit of its own condition as a creature, or will it build with it a new Tower of Babel?

This is the question that will lead us to the final part of our journey:

PART VI — THE NEW SOVEREIGNTY

Energy, Technology, Intelligence and Power: Who Will Control the Future?

Because at that point, the story of Bruno will no longer be merely history.

It will have become a key for interpreting the future.

PART VI — THE NEW SOVEREIGNTY

Energy, Technology, Intelligence and Power: Who Will Control the Future?

1. Sovereignty Is No Longer Merely Territorial

For centuries, we identified sovereignty with control over territory.

Whoever controlled the land controlled resources.

Whoever controlled resources controlled wealth.

Whoever controlled wealth could build armies.

And whoever possessed armies could defend or expand power.

This model dominated political history for millennia.

Then came the Industrial Revolution.

Land remained important, but a new resource appeared, without which the power of modern states would have become impossible:

energy.

Coal first.

Oil and gas later.

Electricity.

Nuclear power.

Sovereignty thus acquired a new dimension.

A state could be politically independent and yet become vulnerable if it could not guarantee the energy required by its economy.

Today we are facing another transition.

Energy remains fundamental.

But it is no longer sufficient.

Because the contemporary economy increasingly depends on the ability to transform energy into technology and knowledge.

2. From Energy Sovereignty to Technological Sovereignty

The transition we are experiencing does not simply mean replacing one energy source with another.

It means transforming the entire system through which a society produces power.

Energy.

Infrastructure.

Research.

Industry.

Data.

Semiconductors.

Software.

Artificial intelligence.

Robotics.

These are elements of the same chain.

A country may possess large quantities of energy, but if it does not possess the technologies necessary to transform it into advanced industrial capability, it will depend on others.

It may possess excellent universities, but if it cannot transform research into companies and infrastructure, it will depend on others.

It may possess competitive companies, but if it depends entirely on essential foreign technologies, it remains vulnerable.

The sovereignty of the future will therefore be the ability to control the strategic supply chains of knowledge and technology.

3. The New Oil Is Not Simply Data

In recent years, it has become popular to say:

"data is the new oil."

The metaphor is useful, but insufficient.

Oil has value because it can be transformed into energy and industrial products.

An isolated piece of data, by contrast, does not necessarily possess value.

Value arises from the ability to:

collect it;

organize it;

interpret it;

connect it with other data;

transform it into knowledge;

use it to make decisions.

And this is where artificial intelligence enters.

AI can become a tool capable of transforming enormous quantities of data into decision-making capability.

For this reason, the true strategic asset is not merely data.

It is the entire cognitive infrastructure capable of transforming data into operational power.

4. Power Changes Form Once Again

We therefore have a historical progression that deserves to be observed.

Ancient power:

control the land.

Industrial power:

control energy and production.

Digital power:

control information and networks.

Cognitive power:

control the processing of knowledge.

And the future could be:

control the ability to transform artificial knowledge into decisions and actions.

This is the point at which AI and robotics become inseparable.

Because a machine capable of knowing is powerful.

But a machine capable of knowing and acting is far more powerful.

5. The Decisive Transition: Intelligence Becomes Infrastructure

For a long time, we regarded intelligence as an individual characteristic.

A person was intelligent.

A community could be educated.

A university produced knowledge.

A company developed expertise.

Today we are entering a world in which part of intelligence becomes infrastructure.

Artificial intelligence can be embedded:

in companies;

in public administrations;

in hospitals;

in universities;

in factories;

in logistics systems;

in financial services;

in energy infrastructures;

in security systems;

in robots.

This means that artificial intelligence will not simply be a new product.

It could become a general infrastructure of society.

And whoever controls a general infrastructure inevitably possesses a form of power.

6. This Is Why Europe Cannot Limit Itself to Regulation

Regulation is necessary.

But regulating a technology one does not possess is different from participating in its construction.

Europe must therefore address a deeper question:

does it want to be merely a consumer of artificial intelligence, or does it also want to be a producer of its own cognitive capability?

The answer will determine part of its future autonomy.

Rules alone are not enough.

We need:

research;

universities;

capital;

companies;

infrastructure;

energy;

semiconductors;

skills;

data centers;

models;

robotics.

Technological sovereignty does not arise from a single law.

It arises from an industrial ecosystem.

7. And Italy?

For Italy, the issue is even more delicate.

Our country possesses extraordinary manufacturing capability.

It has industrial districts.

Mechanical expertise.

Automation.

Robotics.

Mechatronics.

Design.

Capital goods.

Universities and research.

A network of small and medium-sized enterprises that represents one of the distinctive features of our economy.

But precisely this structure risks becoming vulnerable if the new cognitive infrastructure is developed entirely elsewhere.

The Italian company of the future could have Italian machinery, Italian workers and Italian customers, while depending on:

foreign software;

foreign cloud services;

foreign AI models;

foreign semiconductors;

foreign platforms.

Formally, it would still be an Italian company.

Strategically, it could be dependent.

8. The Industrial Question Becomes a Political Question

And here we return to our initial question.

Who controls knowledge controls power.

If strategic knowledge is produced elsewhere, then part of our decision-making capacity is also produced elsewhere.

If fundamental technologies are controlled elsewhere, then part of our strategic freedom is controlled elsewhere.

Sovereignty therefore does not mean isolation.

It means having alternatives.

A sovereign country does not necessarily have to produce everything.

But it must avoid allowing the absence of an essential technology to make it completely dependent on another actor.

This is the difference between:

interdependence

and

strategic dependence.

9. Energy and AI: The Link That Will Become Decisive

The new cognitive economy has a characteristic that we risk underestimating.

Artificial intelligence is digital, but it is not immaterial.

Behind a model there is physical infrastructure.

Servers.

Processors.

Networks.

Cooling systems.

Data centers.

Energy.

And therefore the energy question returns.

It is no longer sufficient to ask:

what energy will we use to power cars and factories?

We must also ask:

what energy will be required to power the cognitive infrastructure of the new economy?

This question will become increasingly important as computing power grows and AI spreads throughout industrial processes.

10. Energy Powers the New Intelligence

We can therefore represent the new system through a very simple chain:

energy → computation → artificial intelligence → automation → robotics → production.

But there is also an inverse path:

AI → greater efficiency → new energy technologies → greater productive capacity.

AI and energy may therefore reinforce one another.

Technology can make energy more efficient.

Energy makes more powerful technology possible.

This means that future competition will not be solely between energy sources.

It will also be between technological systems capable of transforming energy into cognitive and productive capacity.

11. Technological Sovereignty Is Not Technological Nationalism

This point must be made clear.

We are not arguing that every state should build everything it uses on its own.

That would be economically unrealistic and contrary to the history of science.

Knowledge has always grown through exchange.

Galileo cannot be understood without the scientific tradition that preceded him.

Modern science emerged through the circulation of ideas.

Contemporary technology is the result of international networks.

True sovereignty therefore does not mean closing oneself off.

It means being able to choose.

Collaborating because one chooses to.

Not because there is no alternative.

12. The New Inequality

This transformation could produce a new form of inequality.

Not only between rich and poor.

Not only between industrialized and less industrialized countries.

But between those who possess artificial cognitive capability and those who merely use it as a service.

Those who control the most advanced models could have an enormous advantage.

Those who control strategic data could have an advantage.

Those who control semiconductors could have an advantage.

Those who control the necessary energy could have an advantage.

Those who control robotics could have an advantage.

The new economy could therefore concentrate power even more intensely than some previous industrial revolutions.

13. The Risk of a New Aristocracy

We could find ourselves facing something new:

not an aristocracy based on birth,

not a bourgeoisie based solely on capital,

but a cognitive and technological elite capable of controlling the infrastructures through which an increasing part of society produces knowledge.

It is not inevitable.

But it is possible.

And precisely for this reason, the issue must be addressed before concentration becomes structural.

Technology can democratize knowledge.

But it can also concentrate it.

It can increase opportunities.

But it can also increase disparities.

It can free time.

But it can also create new forms of dependence.

Technology, once again, does not determine its own destiny.

Human beings and institutions determine it.

14. The Problem of Power Did Not Die with Bruno

At this point we can return to the sixteenth century.

Bruno's story belongs to a world completely different from ours.

We cannot mechanically transfer his categories into the twenty-first century.

But we can recognize a common structure.

Then the question concerned:

who has the right to establish what may be thought, taught and publicly defended?

Today the question concerns:

who owns the infrastructures through which knowledge is produced, filtered and made operational?

These are different problems.

But both concern the relationship between:

knowledge and power.

It is this continuity—not a false historical equivalence—that makes Bruno still relevant.

15. The New Tower of Babel

And here we are once again before Babel.

The Tower is not merely a building.

It is the symbol of a power that tends toward self-sufficiency.

Today we should not imagine a tower of stone.

We can imagine a tower made of:

data centers;

algorithms;

semiconductors;

energy;

robots;

networks;

capital;

knowledge.

A tower capable of concentrating a quantity of cognitive power never before seen in history.

But the Christian question remains the same:

for what purpose is it being built?

If it is built to serve humanity, it can become an extraordinary instrument.

If it is built to dominate humanity, it can become something entirely different.

16. Limits Are Not the Enemy of Innovation

This is a point on which we must be very clear.

Setting limits does not mean being against progress.

On the contrary.

A technologically mature society is not one that permits everything.

It is one that knows how to distinguish:

innovation from abuse;

risk from benefit;

freedom from arbitrariness;

efficiency from dignity;

possibility from legitimacy.

The limit can therefore become a condition of freedom.

Just as a road without rules does not necessarily produce greater freedom, but may produce the domination of the strongest, technology without principles can produce the domination of those who possess the greatest resources.

17. Responsibility Toward Creation

Our Christian perspective introduces a further element.

Human beings are not the absolute owners of the world.

They are called to cultivate and care for it.

This principle takes on new meaning in the technological age.

Caring for Creation also means asking:

how much energy do we consume?

which materials do we use?

what consequences do we produce?

which territories are affected?

which resources are concentrated?

what model of development are we building?

Artificial intelligence is therefore not separate from ecology.

It is part of the question.

18. A Technology That Respects Humanity and Creation

Our final perspective can therefore be summarized in one principle:

technology must increase humanity's ability to know and transform the world without destroying human dignity or the balance of Creation.

It is a profoundly Christian perspective.

But it can also become a platform for universal dialogue.

Because responsibility toward humanity and toward the world we inhabit does not belong exclusively to one religious denomination.

Christian faith, however, gives it an additional foundation:

Creation is not simply matter available for use; it is a gift and a responsibility.

19. And What About Humanoids?

Here our reasoning reaches its most concrete frontier.

If a humanoid becomes capable of operating autonomously in a factory, assisting an elderly person or intervening in a dangerous environment, we will be facing a new category of tool.

It will not simply be software.

It will not simply be a machine.

It will be an embodied artificial capability.

This will require new standards.

We will have to establish:

who is responsible;

which actions are permissible;

which data it may use;

how it must protect people;

when it must stop;

when it must request human intervention;

how it must respond when objectives conflict.

This is not science fiction.

It is the logical consequence of the convergence between AI and robotics.

20. The Machine Must Know Its Limits

And here we can formulate one of our strongest conclusions.

We cannot ask a machine to possess human faith.

But we can design a machine so that it recognizes its operational limits.

A safe system is not one that claims to know everything.

It is one that knows when it does not know.

A reliable system is not one that always decides.

It is one that knows when it must leave the decision to a human being.

A robot truly serving humanity is not one that replaces every decision.

It is one that recognizes when a human being must remain the decision-maker.

This could be one of the most important characteristics of future AI.

21. From the Intelligent Machine to the Wise Human Being

And here we reach the deepest point.

We can build increasingly powerful artificial intelligences.

But we cannot delegate to a machine the responsibility of deciding what a human being is.

That question remains ours.

The machine can assist us in knowing.

It can help us predict.

It can help us build.

It can help us care for people.

It can help us work.

But it must not become the ultimate criterion of our existence.

Because the day humanity begins to measure its own value through what a machine considers useful, efficient or optimal, we will have undergone an anthropological transformation far deeper than any industrial revolution.

22. Bruno's Question Reaches Us

Bruno was condemned within the context of a conflict with the doctrinal and institutional boundaries of his time.

Galileo was able to advance part of the new knowledge in a different context, supported also by political and cultural protection.

Modern science progressively achieved its autonomy.

Today we are facing another revolution.

But this time the question is not merely:

who can know?

It is:

who will control the knowledge produced by machines?

And therefore:

who will control the power that derives from that knowledge?

This question no longer belongs only to philosophy.

It has become an industrial, economic, geopolitical and strategic issue.

23. The Sovereignty of the Future

The sovereignty of the twenty-first century will therefore be built on several levels:

energy sovereignty, to have access to the necessary energy;

industrial sovereignty, to transform energy into production;

technological sovereignty, to possess the fundamental infrastructures;

digital sovereignty, to control data and networks;

cognitive sovereignty, to avoid becoming completely dependent on external systems for the production and processing of knowledge;

moral sovereignty, to preserve the ability to autonomously determine what a society considers right and desirable.

The last of these may be the most important.

Because a state can be technologically advanced and yet not truly free if it has lost the ability to decide for which kind of human being and for which kind of society that technology should be used.

24. The True Power of the Future

Perhaps we can therefore definitively update our formula.

It is no longer sufficient to say:

who controls knowledge controls power.

We must add:

who controls energy powers knowledge; who controls technology transforms it into capability; who controls artificial intelligence can transform knowledge into decisions; who controls robotics can transform decisions into action.

Within the interpretive model proposed in this work, we can represent the convergence of these dimensions through a conceptual sequence:

ENERGY → TECHNOLOGY → KNOWLEDGE → INTELLIGENCE → DECISION → ACTION → POWER

And this chain probably represents one of the fundamental configurations of the twenty-first century.

25. But Power Is Not the End

And this is where we must stop.

Because otherwise our entire argument could become yet another theory of power.

Our question is instead deeper.

What is power for?

To dominate?

To control?

To concentrate wealth?

Or to create conditions in which human beings can live with greater freedom, dignity and responsibility?

The Christian perspective introduces here an answer radically different from the simple logic of power.

Power finds its legitimacy in service.

Knowledge finds its meaning in truth.

Technology finds its justification in the good of humanity.

And freedom finds its fulfillment in responsibility.

26. The Future We Must Choose

We do not yet know what form artificial intelligence will take twenty or thirty years from now.

We do not know what capabilities humanoids will possess.

We do not know how rapidly they will evolve.

We do not know whether some of the hypotheses being formulated today will actually become reality.

And it is important not to turn predictions into facts.

But one thing we can already know.

The decisions we make today will help determine the world in which these technologies develop.

For this reason, the question cannot be left solely to the market.

It cannot be left solely to politics.

It cannot be left solely to the Church.

It cannot be left solely to scientists.

It cannot be left solely to technology companies.

It requires a dialogue among:

science, industry, politics, philosophy, law, ethics and theology.

27. From History to Responsibility

And here we can finally understand why we began with Giordano Bruno.

We did not simply want to rehabilitate a man.

We did not want to add another interpretation to the many that already exist.

We wanted to understand a dynamic.

Every time humanity acquires a new form of knowledge, the relationship changes between:

truth and authority;

knowledge and power;

science and politics;

innovation and control.

Bruno represents one of the great early fractures of modernity.

Galileo represents the achievement of the methodological autonomy of science.

Zichichi represents the contemporary possibility of keeping the dialogue between science and the Creator open.

Ratzinger reminds us that reason must remain open to truth and that technology cannot become an absolute.

AI represents the new frontier in which knowledge and power are about to meet in a form never experienced before.

28. And So the Tower of Babel Returns

Perhaps the deepest meaning of the Tower of Babel is not that humanity must not build.

Humanity has always built.

The problem arises when it forgets who it is.

The tower then becomes a symbol of the claim to self-sufficiency.

Today we can build towers far higher than those of antiquity.

Not of stone.

Of knowledge.

Of technology.

Of capital.

Of energy.

Of intelligence.

Possiamo costruire sistemi capaci di vedere, ascoltare, comprendere, parlare, pianificare e agire.

But the question remains:

will we build technology that serves humanity, or technology to which humanity will have to adapt?

This is the real choice.

29. The Last Freedom

Perhaps the most important freedom we will have to defend in the future will not simply be the freedom to use artificial intelligence.

It will be the freedom not to delegate everything to artificial intelligence.

The freedom to think.

The freedom to doubt.

The freedom to verify.

The freedom to choose.

The freedom to assume responsibility.

The freedom to say:

"this decision must remain human."

Because a society in which every decision is entrusted to optimized systems could be extraordinarily efficient.

But not necessarily free.

30. The Final Question of Sovereignty

We thus arrive at the question that opens the conclusion of our journey:

who will control the future?

Not necessarily whoever possesses the most money.

Not necessarily whoever possesses the most territory.

Not necessarily whoever has the largest population.

The future could belong to those capable of integrating:

energy, technology, knowledge, artificial intelligence and industrial capability, while at the same time retaining the ability to govern them according to a vision of humanity.

Because true power will not simply be possessing technology.

It will be having the freedom to decide what purpose it should serve.

And this is precisely where our journey returns to its starting point.

Giordano Bruno developed a philosophical inquiry that went beyond many of the boundaries of knowledge of his time.

Galileo claimed the freedom to question nature.

Modern science multiplied that freedom.

Today humanity is building tools capable of multiplying its own cognitive capacity.

The question that remains is no longer merely:

how much will we be able to know?

It is:

how much power will we be able to govern without losing awareness of what it means to be human?

And this question leads us to the final chapter.

EPILOGUE — HUMANITY BEFORE THE CREATOR

From the Tree of Knowledge to the New Tower of Babel

Because, ultimately, the question of artificial intelligence will not be a question about machines.

It will be a question about humanity.

1. In the End, the Machine Forces Us to Look at Humanity

We began this journey with a man condemned in Rome in 1600.

Giordano Bruno belonged to a world in which knowledge of the universe, theology, philosophy and political power were still deeply intertwined.

We passed through Galileo, the birth of modern science, the progressive autonomy of research, the contemporary reflection of Antonino Zichichi, Joseph Ratzinger's thought on the relationship between faith, reason and technology, the emergence of bioethics and, finally, artificial intelligence.

At first glance, these might seem like chapters belonging to completely different histories.

In reality, they are connected by a question that continually returns:

what happens when humanity acquires a new form of knowledge capable of changing its relationship with reality?

Whenever this happens, something more than knowledge changes.

Power changes.

2. Bruno Does Not Belong Only to the Past

Our research on Bruno was not intended to turn him into a saint, nor to erase the theological controversies that emerge from the trial documents.

Rather, we sought to restore the complexity of the historical man.

A Dominican friar trained in the theological culture of his time.

A priest.

A philosopher.

A restless thinker.

A man who crossed Europe carrying with him a conception of the universe that broke many established intellectual frameworks.

And above all, a man who cannot be reduced to the label "pantheist" without carefully examining what he actually thought and what was actually contested against him.

Our task was not to replace one legend with another.

It was to separate the documented Bruno from the Bruno subsequently constructed by the different cultures that sought to appropriate his image.

This is also important for the future.

Because knowledge can be manipulated just as power can.

3. The True Lesson of Bruno's Story

Bruno's story gives us a first lesson:

when new knowledge challenges the established order, the problem is no longer only the truth of that knowledge, but also who possesses the authority to establish its boundaries.

In his time, those boundaries were predominantly religious, philosophical and institutional.

Today they are very different.

But the problem of the concentration of power over knowledge has not disappeared.

It has changed form.

And precisely for this reason, Bruno continues to speak to us.

4. Galileo Taught Us Something Else

Galileo made a fundamental transition.

He helped establish that nature must be questioned through:

experience, observation, reason and demonstration.

Not through authority alone.

And this principle helped liberate scientific inquiry.

But Galileo did not turn this freedom into a denial of God.

His statement remains extraordinarily significant:

"nor is God revealed less excellently in the effects of nature than in the sacred words of Scripture."

Science, therefore, was not for Galileo a way of eliminating the Creator.

It was a tool through which humanity could better understand Creation.

This distinction remains fundamental today.

5. Science Is Not the New God

Scientific progress has produced an amount of knowledge that no previous generation could have imagined.

But precisely for this reason, we must avoid a new form of dogmatism.

Science is extraordinarily powerful in answering the question:

how does it work?

But it cannot automatically transform every human question into a scientific question.

Meaning.

Goodness.

Justice.

Dignity.

Responsibility.

The purpose of existence.

These are questions that also involve philosophy, ethics and theology.

And this is where Zichichi's thought acquires its meaning.

Not as scientific proof of God's existence.

But as contemporary testimony to the fact that scientific inquiry and faith in the Creator do not necessarily have to exclude one another.

6. Ratzinger Gives Us the Criterion

Joseph Ratzinger offers us perhaps the most important key for navigating our time.

Reason must not be afraid of faith.

Faith must not be afraid of reason.

And technology must not become an absolute.

Because when technology becomes an end in itself, humanity risks transforming itself from the subject of technology into its object.

This is the point at which the thought of Benedict XVI enters directly into our reflection on artificial intelligence.

The question is not:

"Can we build it?"

The question is:

"For what kind of human being are we building it?"

7. The Real Problem with AI Is Not Intelligence

It may seem paradoxical.

We have called this new technology artificial intelligence.

And yet the most important question is not how intelligent it will become.

The real question is what we will do with its intelligence.

A machine could become capable of surpassing humans in certain activities.

It could analyze more data.

Calculate more quickly.

Recognize patterns that humans cannot see.

Predict certain phenomena.

Generate content.

Control industrial processes.

Guide robots.

But none of these capabilities automatically answers the question:

"Why?"

And it is precisely the "why" that brings humanity back to the center.

8. The Tree of Knowledge

Let us return, then, to Genesis.

Humanity is not condemned because it wants to know.

Knowledge belongs to human dignity.

The problem is the claim to autonomously appropriate the knowledge of good and evil, transforming knowledge into a form of self-sufficiency.

This distinction is extraordinarily relevant today.

Because humanity is now building systems capable of processing an amount of information that no individual could manage autonomously.

The question therefore becomes:

will we use artificial intelligence to understand reality better, or will we entrust it with the task of determining which reality we should know?

The difference is enormous.

In the first case, the machine is a tool.

In the second, it risks becoming an authority.

9. The Tower of Babel

Then comes Babel.

Humanity builds a tower and wants to make a name for itself.

It is not construction itself that is condemned.

It is the claim.

The claim to reach heaven.

The claim to be self-sufficient.

The claim to build power without limits.

This is where Babel becomes an extraordinarily relevant metaphor.

Today we can build a different tower.

Not of stone.

But of:

energy, data, semiconductors, algorithms, artificial intelligence, robots and capital.

A tower capable of concentrating a cognitive power never before seen.

The question is not whether we should build it.

The question is:

who will build it, for what purpose and in whose service?

10. The True "New Babel"

We could therefore define the new Babel not as a machine that replaces God.

That would be an oversimplification.

The new Babel would instead be the construction of a technological system in which humanity claims that it no longer needs any limit external to its own ability to know, decide and transform reality.

This is a fundamental distinction.

The problem is not technology.

The problem is the absolutization of technology.

It is not artificial intelligence.

It is the idea that artificial intelligence could become the ultimate criterion of truth, morality and human life.

11. A Machine Must Not Become Our Judge

Here we reach a decisive point.

We can entrust increasingly complex tasks to machines.

But we should not confuse:

automated decision-making

with

moral responsibility.

A machine can assist.

It can suggest.

It can predict.

It can optimize.

But responsibility for the consequences of decisions remains with humanity.

This principle will be particularly important when humanoids enter workplaces, homes, hospitals and public spaces.

A machine can perform an action.

But someone must be responsible for the fact that the machine was designed, authorized and used in that way.

12. The Machine Must Respect Humanity

And here we can finally give concrete content to our idea of the moralization of artificial intelligence.

We are not asking a machine to possess religious faith.

We have no grounds for claiming that a machine possesses a soul.

We must not anthropomorphize it.

We are asking for something different.

That it be designed and governed according to principles that protect:

life;

dignity;

freedom;

truth;

responsibility;

justice;

security;

respect for Creation.

A machine does not need to be a believer.

It must be governed by believers and non-believers who recognize the value of the human being.

Within our Christian perspective, this value has an additional foundation: the human being is a creature and possesses a dignity that does not depend on usefulness.

13. Creation Is Not an Infinite Mine

This responsibility also concerns the Earth.

Artificial intelligence appears immaterial.

It is not.

Behind every system there are physical infrastructures.

Energy.

Water for cooling.

Semiconductors.

Metals.

Data centers.

Networks.

Transport.

Human labor.

The digital revolution is therefore also material.

If we want to build a sustainable technological civilization, we must ask not only how intelligent a machine is.

We must ask what its intelligence costs Creation.

This is a question that will become increasingly important in the future.

14. Energy and Sovereignty

And here we return to geopolitics.

Energy powers data centers.

Data centers power AI.

AI increases industrial capability.

Robotics transforms that capability into action.

Production generates wealth.

Wealth generates power.

The chain is now clear:

ENERGY → TECHNOLOGY → KNOWLEDGE → INTELLIGENCE → PRODUCTION → POWER.

For this reason, energy sovereignty and technological sovereignty cannot be considered separately.

A society that depends entirely on external sources for energy and strategic technology does not possess full decision-making autonomy.

And here the issue becomes particularly important for Europe and Italy.

15. Italy Facing the New Revolution

Italy does not have to choose between industry and technology.

Its historical strength lies precisely in its ability to transform knowledge into manufacturing.

Mechanical engineering.

Automation.

Mechatronics.

Robotics

Capital goods.

Design.

Chemicals.

Pharmaceuticals.

Aerospace.

Agri-food.

These capabilities can become fundamental in the age of AI.

But only if we succeed in integrating our new cognitive capabilities with our industrial capabilities.

The real risk is not simply that robots will replace workers.

The greater risk is that the factories of the future will be physically located in Italy but cognitively dependent on infrastructures controlled elsewhere.

This is the real issue of technological sovereignty.

16. The Power of Those Who Control Knowledge

Let us therefore return definitively to the title.

WHO CONTROLS KNOWLEDGE
CONTROLS POWER

This statement should not be interpreted merely as a political theory.

It is also a responsibility.

If knowledge is power, then access to knowledge must be as open, pluralistic and verifiable as possible.

If technology concentrates knowledge in the hands of a few, the problem is not merely economic.

It is democratic.

If a society can no longer verify what it is told, it becomes vulnerable.

If it does not possess fundamental technologies, it becomes dependent.

If it does not possess the energy required to power them, it becomes fragile.

If it does not possess the skills to understand them, it becomes a spectator.

17. The Future Must Not Become a New Form of Domination

And here we finally return to the lesson of Bruno.

His story shows us what can happen when knowledge comes into conflict with a system of power.

We must not reproduce that dynamic in technological form.

We cannot allow artificial intelligence to become a new unquestionable authority.

We cannot accept an algorithm saying:

"it is so because the model says so."

The scientific culture that emerged with Galileo requires us to respond:

prove it.

Philosophy requires us to ask:

explain it.

Democracy requires us to demand:

make it transparent.

Ethics requires us to ask:

demonstrate that it is right.

And Christian faith asks an even more radical question:

does it respect the dignity of the human person and Creation?

18. Humanity Must Not Become Raw Material for the Machine

This is perhaps the most important point of the entire epilogue.

Technology originates with humanity.

It is the product of human intelligence, creativity and work.

But there is a risk that the relationship could be reversed.

That human beings could be evaluated according to criteria established by machines.

That workers could be regarded merely as cost variables.

That citizens could become sets of data.

That patients could become statistical profiles.

That children could become predictive consumers.

That the person could become an algorithm.

If this were to happen, we would not simply have built more powerful technology.

We would have changed the very idea of the human person.

And this is precisely what we must avoid.

19. The Real Challenge Is Moral

We could build an extremely intelligent machine and live in a morally backward society.

We could have perfect robots and corrupt institutions.

We could have abundant energy and destroy Creation.

We could possess immense knowledge and use it to manipulate.

We could have extraordinary technology and lose our freedom.

Therefore, the real challenge is not simply:

building intelligent machines.

It is:

building a society wise enough to govern them.

This is a much more difficult challenge.

20. Wisdom Is Not Calculation

A machine can calculate.

Wisdom is something different.

Wisdom involves experience, responsibility, discernment, the ability to understand consequences and to direct one's freedom toward the good.

We must not confuse extraordinary computational capability with wisdom.

We may build systems capable of solving enormously complex mathematical problems.

But that does not mean they know which problem is worth solving.

This distinction could become one of the most important of the future.

21. Christianity Before Artificial Intelligence

Our conclusion therefore cannot be a condemnation of technology.

That would contradict the entire path we have constructed.

Galileo taught us that knowing Creation does not mean denying the Creator.

Zichichi showed us that science can coexist with faith.

Ratzinger reminded us that reason and faith must meet and that technology must remain subordinate to the truth about humanity.

The Christian perspective should therefore not say:

"do not build."

It should say:

"build, but do not forget who you are."

Not:

"do not seek knowledge."

But:

"seek knowledge without transforming knowledge into omnipotence."

Not:

"do not use technology."

But:

"use it so that it serves humanity and Creation."

22. Humanity Before the Creator

This is why the title of the epilogue is not:

Humanity Before the Machine.

It is:

HUMANITY BEFORE THE CREATOR

Because the ultimate question does not concern what the machine will do.

It concerns what humanity will choose to do with its ability to build.

Humanity can use AI to heal.

To educate.

To understand.

To protect.

To produce.

To free time.

To confront disease.

To explore space.

To protect the environment.

Or it can use it to control, manipulate and dominate.

Technology will multiply our possibilities.

But it will not automatically decide which possibilities we should choose.

23. The New Freedom

The true freedom of the future will therefore be the ability to say no even when a technology says yes.

No to manipulation.

No to the indiscriminate replacement of human beings.

No to the absolute concentration of knowledge.

No to transforming the person into data.

No to the idea that whatever is technically possible is automatically morally permissible.

But also:

yes to research;

yes to science;

yes to innovation;

yes to knowledge;

yes to technology when it serves humanity;

yes to the creative capacity that belongs to human dignity.

This is not a position against the future.

It is a position for a human future.

24. Bruno and AI: Four Centuries, One Question

And so we can finally return to the starting point.

Giordano Bruno died in 1600.

Four centuries later, we stand before a transformation that would have exceeded his imagination.

But one question has remained.

Then:

who decides what human beings may know?

Today:

who will decide what human beings will be able to know through machines?

Then, power sought to control the circulation of certain ideas.

Today, power could control the infrastructure through which billions of people receive and interpret information.

Technology has changed.

Responsibility has remained.

25. Galileo's Final Lesson

Galileo left us another fundamental lesson.

Truth does not belong to authority simply because it is authority.

Truth must be capable of being sought.

It must be capable of being verified.

It must be capable of being discussed.

This principle must also be applied to artificial intelligence.

We must not accept an answer simply because it comes from a technologically sophisticated system.

We must continue to ask:

where does this information come from?

what data supports it?

what method was used?

what errors might it contain?

who controls the system?

what interests may lie behind it?

Scientific culture must not diminish with AI.

It must become even more rigorous.

26. Knowledge as Responsibility

We thus arrive at the definitive conclusion.

Knowledge is an extraordinary gift.

But every form of knowledge carries with it a responsibility proportional to the power it generates.

When humanity discovered nuclear energy, it acquired an enormous responsibility.

When it learned to manipulate the genetic heritage, it acquired another.

When it built artificial intelligence, it opened a new dimension.

And when it connects AI with robotics and humanoids, that responsibility will become even greater.

Because knowledge will no longer exist only in our hands.

It will be incorporated into systems capable of acting.

27. Humanity Must Not Become God

This is perhaps the simplest and most difficult statement to uphold.

Humanity can know.

It can create.

It can invent.

It can transform.

It can build.

But it must not confuse its creative capacity with the condition of the Creator.

The Tree of Knowledge reminds us of the limit of human presumption.

Babel reminds us of the limit of power.

Galileo reminds us of the freedom of inquiry.

Zichichi reminds us that science can continue to question the Creator.

Ratzinger reminds us that reason must remain open to truth and that technology cannot become an absolute.

Bruno, finally, reminds us how fragile the freedom of knowledge can become when it comes into conflict with power.

28. The Question We Leave to the Future

We do not yet know what artificial intelligence will be like fifty years from now.

We do not know what capabilities humanoids will possess.

We do not know whether forms of artificial intelligence will emerge that today we cannot even imagine.

We must not invent certainties where only hypotheses exist.

But we can choose today which principles to defend.

We can choose that the person comes before the machine.

That truth comes before propaganda.

That responsibility comes before efficiency.

That freedom comes before control.

That knowledge remains open and verifiable.

That technology serves the good.

That Creation is not treated as an infinite resource.

And, from our Christian perspective, that humanity never forgets its condition as a creature.

29. Whoever Controls Knowledge Will Control Power

We have finally returned to our title.

But now we know that it contains much more than it seemed to at the beginning.

Whoever controls knowledge controls power.

Because knowledge makes understanding possible.

Understanding makes prediction possible.

Prediction makes decision possible.

Decision makes action possible.

Action makes it possible to transform reality.

And whoever possesses the ability to transform reality possesses a form of power.

The story of Giordano Bruno shows us how delicate this relationship can be.

The story of Galileo shows us how important freedom of inquiry is.

Contemporary science shows us how much we still have to understand.

Artificial intelligence confronts us with a possibility never known before:

transforming knowledge itself into an artificial capability.

30. The Final Question Is Not About the Machine

And so we can close our journey with the question from which, in reality, everything began:

who will control knowledge?

But the more important answer is not:

who will control AI?

It is:

who will control the human being who controls AI?

Because we can build intelligent machines.

We can build autonomous robots.

We can build humanoids.

We can produce energy.

We can accumulate data.

We can acquire immense knowledge.

But one question will always remain that no machine can erase:

what is good to do with all this power?

That question still belongs to humanity.

And, for those who believe, it belongs to humanity before God.

Perhaps this is the true lesson that runs through four centuries of history.

Bruno sought truth.

Galileo sought truth in nature.

Science has continued to seek it within matter and the universe.

Artificial intelligence will allow us to seek it through new and extraordinarily powerful tools.

But the search for truth cannot be replaced by the possession of power.

Because knowing does not mean possessing the truth.

And creating increasingly powerful tools does not mean becoming the Creator.

Human greatness will therefore not consist in succeeding in building a machine that knows everything.

It will consist in having enough wisdom to know what to do with what it can know.

And perhaps, after the Tree of Knowledge and the Tower of Babel, this is the question with which humanity enters the future:

WILL WE KNOW HOW TO BECOME MORE POWERFUL WITHOUT FORGETTING THAT WE ARE HUMAN?

This is where the story of Giordano Bruno ceases to belong only to the past and becomes a question for our future.

POSTFACE

FROM THESIS TO TEST

This book was born from a conviction, but it does not want to end with a conviction.

It wants to end with a question addressed to the documents.

Because if our intention is truly to seek the truth of the facts, we must also accept the possibility that some of our initial intuitions may need to be corrected, clarified or scaled back.

This is, ultimately, the method we have sought to defend through Galileo.

Truth must not be afraid of verification.

And this rule must also apply to our own thesis.

1. Our Central Hypothesis

The hypothesis I developed throughout these pages can be summarized as follows:

The condemnation of Giordano Bruno cannot be explained simply through the label "pantheist," nor reduced to the opposition between Bruno and the Church at the level of philosophical ideas alone. It must be reconstructed through the trial documents, the theological and political context of the Roman Church at the end of the sixteenth century, and the actual nature of the propositions contested against Bruno.

This is my own interpretive historical thesis, developed on the basis of the documentation examined and verified against the available sources. Documented facts are distinguished from the interpretations I propose: the thesis is not presented as an already established historical truth, but as a new interpretive framework subjected to comparison with the documentation and historiography.

A second consideration follows from this:

Bruno's figure was subsequently reinterpreted by different cultures and used as a symbol in philosophical, political and anticlerical battles that do not necessarily coincide with the historical thought of the man condemned in 1600.

This too is a proposition that must be documented.

Finally, we formulated a third thesis, which already belongs to the philosophical sphere:

Bruno's story can be used as an interpretive key for reflecting on the enduring relationship between knowledge, authority and power, extending to the new frontier of artificial intelligence.

This, however, does not claim to be a historical conclusion.

It is our interpretation.

And it is precisely this distinction that makes the work stronger.

2. We Must Not Rehabilitate Bruno by Creating Another Myth

This is perhaps the most important methodological point.

There is an absolutely orthodox Catholic Bruno constructed to oppose the anti-Christian Bruno.

There is a pantheist Bruno constructed to set him against the Church.

There is a Bruno who is a martyr of freedom of thought.

There is a Bruno who anticipated modern science.

There is an esoteric Bruno.

There is an almost prophetic Bruno.

But the historian must take a step back.

He must ask:

which Bruno emerges from the documents?

It is this Bruno that we must seek.

Not the one we need to confirm our thesis.

3. The Question of Pantheism

Here particular precision will be necessary.

The term pantheism belongs to the history of philosophy, but using it to describe Bruno requires caution.

We cannot simply take a later category and automatically apply it to a sixteenth-century thinker.

Bruno used a language in which God, nature, the universe, infinity and the unity of reality are deeply interconnected.

But this does not automatically mean that his philosophy can be reduced to the formula:

God = nature.

The issue is much more complex.

For this reason, our definitive formulation should be:

Bruno cannot be dismissed through the simple label "pantheist": his conception of God, infinity, nature and the universe must be reconstructed directly through his works and through the propositions contested in the trial.

This is a much more difficult thesis to attack.

And, above all, it is methodologically more correct.

4. Bruno and Christ

Here we must be equally rigorous.

The interpretive hypothesis that Bruno maintained an authentic Christian reference is an interpretation that must be submitted to the documents, not a fact we can simply declare.

Bruno had certainly entered the Dominican Order, received theological training and was deeply familiar with the Christian culture of his time.

But this does not automatically mean that all his theological positions conformed to Catholic doctrine as it then stood.

The historically correct question is therefore:

which elements of his formation and works demonstrate the persistence of a Christian reference, and which, on the other hand, were judged incompatible with Catholic doctrine?

This is the question we must document.

5. The Trial Is the Decisive Document

If we want to understand why Bruno was condemned, we must begin with the trial records.

Not later interpretations.

Not commemorations.

Not anticlerical controversies.

Not subsequent ideological appropriations.

The records.

We must therefore reconstruct:

• the initial accusations;

• the objections raised during the interrogations;

• the theological propositions contested;

• any retractions;

• the demands for recantation;

• Bruno's conduct;

• the final sentence;

• the relationship between ecclesiastical condemnation and civil execution.

Only after this reconstruction can we say precisely why he was condemned.

6. And Here the Most Interesting Part May Emerge

Our research may confirm something different from what we initially thought.

It may demonstrate that the theological accusations were not simply a pretext invented to eliminate an inconvenient thinker.

But it could also show that the theological issues were intertwined with a broader crisis of authority and the political-cultural order of the time.

This second hypothesis is historically much more interesting than the first.

Because we do not need to claim that the Church "invented" the accusations.

We need to understand why certain ideas were considered so dangerous as to justify a capital sentence in the context of the time.

And this is where the relationship between knowledge and power becomes central again.

7. Bruno Must Not Become a Weapon Against the Church

This point, which we have deliberately kept in the background, must remain there.

Our research does not need to oppose:

Bruno against the Church.

Nor:

Bruno against Christianity.

Nor:

science against religion.

Our question is different:

how did the relationship between knowledge, religious authority and temporal power function in European society at the end of the sixteenth century?

It is a historical question.

And precisely for that reason, it is much more powerful.

8. The Church of the Time and the Church of Christ

Here we must maintain the distinction that has guided our entire reasoning.

We cannot automatically identify every political choice made by the ecclesiastical institution during a particular period with the essence of the Gospel message.

The historical Church is also a human institution, embedded in the political, economic and social structures of its time.

The Church of Christ, in the Christian theological perspective, belongs instead to a different level.

This distinction allows us to avoid a simplistic opposition.

We can therefore criticize a particular historical form of the exercise of ecclesiastical power without turning that criticism into a judgment against Christianity.

And this is precisely the perspective we intend to maintain.

9. Galileo Then Becomes a Decisive Comparison

The comparison with Galileo will be particularly important.

Not because Galileo was simply "protected" and Bruno was not.

That claim, too, will have to be documented precisely.

But because Galileo allows us to observe another mode of relationship between:

science, power, patronage, institutions and authority.

The role of the Medici, the Florentine court, patrons, cultural networks and political protection will have to be historically reconstructed.

We can then ask a very interesting question:

how much does the history of innovation depend on the quality of an idea, and how much on the political context that allows that idea to survive?

This question does not concern Galileo alone.

It concerns every innovation.

And therefore it also concerns artificial intelligence.

10. From Galileo's Protection to the Protection of Innovation

This is one of the strongest passages of my prospective thesis.

A new idea can be extraordinarily valuable and yet fail to prevail.

It can be obstructed.

It can be ignored.

It can be persecuted.

It can simply be too far ahead of its time.

Innovation therefore needs more than intelligence.

It needs:

freedom;

institutions;

capital;

legal protection;

infrastructure;

scientific communities;

companies capable of transforming an idea into reality.

This is a lesson that becomes extraordinarily relevant in the age of AI.

11. From the Stake to Technological Competition

Four centuries later, power is no longer necessarily exercised through the stake.

It can be exercised through:

patents;

capital;

control of infrastructure;

access to data;

semiconductors;

energy;

technological standards;

platforms;

markets;

regulation.

The form of power has changed.

But the logic of the concentration of knowledge can reappear.

This is why Bruno's story must not be used simply as a celebration of the past.

It must become a lens through which to read the present.

12. And Here We Reach Our True Conclusion

We did not begin this work to prove that future humanity will be replaced by machines.

Nor did we begin it to prove that artificial intelligence will necessarily represent a threat.

The central question of my thesis is different and emerges from the historical path we have followed.

In Giordano Bruno's time, power could also be exercised through control of knowledge, while new knowledge capable of challenging the established order could become destabilizing. With Galileo, knowledge progressively gained autonomy from authority. With modernity, it became science; science became technology; and technology became a new form of power.

Today the parabola has been reversed. Knowledge is no longer necessarily what destabilizes power: it can be incorporated into technology, data, artificial-intelligence models and the infrastructures that make them possible, becoming one of the main sources of strategic capability and power.

The paradox of our time is therefore this: whereas then new knowledge could challenge power, today power can incorporate new knowledge into technology; and this technology could, in perspective, reach levels of complexity and autonomy that make it more difficult for humanity to fully govern the power it has built.

This is the true continuity between Bruno and artificial intelligence.

But our age introduces a further question: what happens when humanity does not merely use technology, but progressively delegates to it functions of processing, decision-making and action?

The problem of the future will therefore not only be who controls knowledge. It will also be who controls the technology through which knowledge becomes power, and whether humanity will succeed in maintaining control over its own technological creation.

And this is where the title acquires its definitive meaning:

WHO CONTROLS KNOWLEDGE
CONTROLS POWER

From Giordano Bruno
to Artificial Intelligence

It is not merely a historical title. It is the central thesis I propose in this work.

But it is also a question directed toward the future: who will control knowledge when it is increasingly embedded in the machines and technological infrastructures upon which our societies will depend?

13. The Test of the Future

The real test will not be determining whether artificial intelligence will be more intelligent than humanity.

It will be determining who controls it.

Who controls the energy required to power it.

Who controls semiconductors.

Who controls data.

Who controls models.

Who controls infrastructure.

Who controls robotics.

Who controls the systems in which this knowledge will be embedded.

Who establishes moral criteria.

Who establishes limits.

And who will still have the ability to intervene when an increasing share of decisions is entrusted to increasingly complex technological systems?

And above all: who will control those who control all of this?

This is the political question of the future.

14. And the Christian Answer

Our answer is not the rejection of technology.

It is the recognition of limit, responsibility and purpose.

Humanity can know.

It can create.

It can transform.

It can build.

But it remains a creature.

Technology must therefore be subordinated to the person.

The person must be oriented toward truth.

Freedom must be accompanied by responsibility.

Knowledge must be accompanied by wisdom.

And power must be accompanied by limits.

This is not a position against modernity.

It is, on the contrary, a proposal for a modernity capable of not destroying humanity while increasing its capabilities.

15. The Final Sentence

Perhaps we can close the book with a sentence even simpler than the one we have used so far:

Humanity will be able to build increasingly intelligent machines, capable of processing knowledge, making decisions and acting in the world. But the future will depend on its ability to remain wise enough not to delegate to its own creation what must continue to belong to human responsibility. And this responsibility is not only toward itself, toward other human beings and toward Creation: it is responsibility before the Creator. For humanity can know Creation, transform it and build increasingly powerful tools, but this does not mean that it ceases to be a creature and does not thereby become the Creator.

And, from our Christian perspective, humanity can become extraordinarily powerful without thereby becoming God. Its greatness does not consist in replacing the Creator, but in knowing how to use responsibly the freedom, knowledge and creative capacity entrusted to it by God.

This is the line that connects Bruno, Galileo, Zichichi, Ratzinger and artificial intelligence.

Not a line of conflict between faith and science.

But a line of inquiry:

knowledge → freedom → responsibility → power → limit.

And it is precisely at the point where power encounters limits that humanity demonstrates that it has truly understood its own greatness.

This is the thesis that Luigi Carfora proposes through the journey from Giordano Bruno to Artificial Intelligence.