Giuseppe O. Longo
University of Trieste
Full Professor of Information Theory at the University of Trieste. He graduated in Electronics Engineering (1964) and in Mathematics (1968) and received a Ph.D. in Information Theory (1969), a subject that he has contributed to introduce in Italy.
He has taken part in many international conferences on information theory and related topics, reading papers and chairing sessions. He organized the 1979 IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory at Grignano, near Trieste. He has carried out teaching and research activity in several universities and other scientific institutions in Europe, United States and Asia.
Currently his scientific interests are mainly devoted to epistemology, artificial intelligence, roboethics, and the social impact of technology. He published several books on the cultural and anthropological consequences of the new technologies: Il nuovo Golem: come il computer cambia la nostra cultura, (Laterza, Roma-Bari, 1998), Homo Technologicus (Meltemi, Roma, 2001), Il Simbionte: prove di umanità futura (Meltemi, Roma, 2003), Il senso e la narrazione (Springer Verlag Italia, Milano, 2008).
He has acted as director of the section Scientific and literary languages of the Interdisciplinary Laboratory of the ISAS (International School for Advanced Studies) in Trieste, and as director of the Information and Automation Dept of the Centre International des Sciences Mécaniques in Udine. He teaches a course on creative writing at the Master in Science communication of the ISAS in Trieste. He is a member of several scientific institutions.
He has translated 15 books (from English and German into Italian), and in 1991 he was awarded the “Monselice” prize for scientific translation.
He is a novelist and playwright, and some of his stories and novels have been translated into French and other languages
He has coordinated, and contributed to, several encyclopedic works of the Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana, and writes regularly for the Corriere della sera, Technology Review, Pluriverso, Avvenire, L’Occidentale, Mondo Digitale, Prometeo and other newspapers and magazines. He also participates in the programmes of the Italian Broadcasting Company (RAI) and of the Radio of the Italian Switzerland.
