TUTTO E' NUMERO - TALKS WITH THE ARTISTS
FROM MATHEMATICS TO MUSIC
23RD JUNE - 9TH JULY 2023
CAIO MELISSO CARLA FENDI THEATRE - SPOLETO
Curated by Quirino Conti
On the stage of the Caio Melisso Carla Fendi Theatre, mathematician Paolo Zellini, music historian Sandro Cappelletto, and Francesca Rossi, President of the World Association for AI Research, explored the connections between music and mathematics, algorithms, creativity, and the ethics of generative artificial intelligence, accompanied by the Goldberg Variations by Johann Sebastian Bach, performed by pianist Marco Scolastra.
PAOLO ZELLINI
NATURE AND THE POWER OF NUMBERS
"Things are like numbers, Pythagoras argued, or, in an extreme form, things are numbers. This claim may seem unusual and partly incomprehensible, yet modern computation, which inherited many of its methods from ancient mathematics, could confirm it. Numbers could still today claim the same symbolic power, and at the same time the same reality, which they possessed not only in Greece but also across other cultures." - Paolo Zellini
FRANCESCA ROSSI
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, ETHICS
"AI is now a productive and creative engine for every sector, with undeniable economic and social value. However, its pervasive use also raises justified concerns about its potential impact on the world of work, education, the environment, fundamental rights such as privacy, fairness, and transparency, and more generally, the speed and global nature of the AI-enabled digital transformation. In addressing these issues, we must all play a complementary role, aiming to jointly identify technological solutions and rules to create a future where human values and rights are respected and the uniqueness of our intelligence is not questioned, but rather amplified by technology." - Francesca Rossi
SANDRO CAPPELLETTO
BACH: RIGOROUS MATHEMATICIAN, IMAGINATIVE JUGGLER
"The most famous definition of the relationship between music and numbers comes from the German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz: 'Music is a hidden exercise in arithmetic, of which the soul is unaware.' Soul and calculation, rule and creativity, order and invention: music emerges from the encounter of these complementary and inseparable forces. A perfect example of this coexistence is Johann Sebastian Bach’s ‘Goldberg Variations’. Their rigorous numerical composition is the necessary condition for the flourishing of their supreme beauty." - Sandro Cappelletto
