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Outputs

This page brings together the outputs of The Human Error Project (2020–2025): our academic publications, the talks and conference presentations we delivered across Europe, the doctoral dissertations completed within the project, and our public knowledge-sharing activities, including the “Machines That Fail Us” podcast series and conference.

Academic publications:

  • Barassi, V., & Di Salvo, P. (2025). Introduction: The failed epistemologies of AI? Making sense of AI errors, failures and their impacts on society. Annals of the Fondazione Luigi Einaudi: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Economics, History and Political Science, LIX(2). https://doi.org/10.26331/1272
  • Poux-Berthe, M., Patra, R., Barassi, V., & Di Salvo, P. (2025). What AI can’t know: How the epistemic failures in algorithmic profiling shape the cultural conflicts on AI ethics amongst tech entrepreneurs in Europe. Annals of the Fondazione Luigi Einaudi: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Economics, History and Political Science, LIX(2). https://doi.org/10.26331/1275
  • Scharenberg, A., & Barassi, V. (2025). Algorithmic resistance in Europe and the question of collective agency. In A. Mattoni (Ed.), Handbook of progressive politics (pp. 466–481). Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781800880641
  • Di Salvo, P. (2025). Investigating black box technologies, digital power, and its invisibilities. In N. Macfarlane, B. Longo-Flint, & J. Price (Eds.), Insights on investigative journalism (pp. 68–82). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003478157-7
  • Barassi, V. (2024). Toward a theory of AI errors: Making sense of hallucinations, catastrophic failures, and the fallacy of generative AI. Harvard Data Science Review, (Special Issue 5). https://doi.org/10.1162/99608f92.ad8ebbd4
  • Barassi, V., & Patra, R. (2022). AI errors in health? The problem of scientific bias and the limits of media debate in Europe. Morals & Machines, 2(1), 34–43. https://doi.org/10.5771/2747-5174-2022-1-34
  • Barassi, V. (2022). Algorithmic violence in everyday life and the role of media anthropology. In E. Costa, P. G. Lange, N. Haynes, & J. Sinanan (Eds.), The Routledge companion to media anthropology (pp. 481–491). Routledge. Available here.

Research reports:

  • Scharenberg, A., Barassi, V., & Di Salvo, P. (2024). Civil society’s struggle against algorithmic injustice in Europe (The Human Error Project: AI, Human Rights and the Conflict over Algorithmic Profiling, Research Report No. II). School of Humanities and Social Sciences and MCM Institute, University of St. Gallen. Available here.
  • Barassi, V., Scharenberg, A., Poux-Berthe, M., Patra, R., & Di Salvo, P. (2022). AI errors and the profiling of humans: Mapping the debate in European news media (The Human Error Project: AI, Human Rights and the Conflict over Algorithmic Profiling, Research Report No. I). School of Humanities and Social Sciences and MCM Institute, University of St. Gallen. Available here.

Academic presentations and keynotes:

  • Barassi, V. (2025). AI errors and the illusion of artificial life: Ethnographic encounters with generative AI [Opening lecture]. Social Science and Generative AI: Inquiries, Instruments, Consequences Conference, Médialab, Sciences Po, Paris, France.
  • Poux-Berthe, M. (2024). Ageing, loss and AI: The ethics of deadbots from the perspective of older adults [Conference presentation]. The 7th International Death Online Research Symposium — Digital Death: Transforming History, Rituals, and Afterlife, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
  • Poux-Berthe, M., Barassi, V., Di Salvo, P., & Patra, R. (2024). Negotiating alternative AI futures: A critical engagement with European civil society organizations, tech entrepreneurs and journalists [Conference presentation]. 10th European Communication Conference (ECC): Communication & Social (Dis)order, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
  • Patra, R. (2024). Mistrusted identities and surveillance of Dalits in India: The case of GPS-enabled tracking of sanitation workers [Conference presentation]. 10th European Communication Conference (ECC): Communication & Social (Dis)order, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
  • Di Salvo, P. (2024). Positioning journalism at the core of the current AI struggle: Challenges for journalists and educators [Conference Keyonote]. Challenges and Opportunities of AI for Journalism Education Winter Conference, Association for Journalism Education, Online.
  • Di Salvo, P. (2024). Understanding journalism’s role in addressing the rise of artificial intelligence [Conference presentation]. Artificial Intelligence, Politics and Societies Workshop, Università di Bologna, Bologna, Italy.
  • Barassi, V. (2023). The everyday life of AI failures: Conflicts, experiences and the future imaginaries [Keynote address]. Sensing Technologies Symposium: Imaginaries, Futurities, Practices of Control and Care, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
  • Di Salvo, P. (2023). Following the critical AI beat: European journalists covering AI errors and algorithmic profiling [Conference presentation]. Future of Journalism Conference 2023, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom.
  • Di Salvo, P., & Barassi, V. (2023). The mediated lives of AI errors: Critical insights from European news media (2020–2022) [Conference presentation]. International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) 2023 Conference, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, Lyon, France.
  • Di Salvo, P. (2023). The fallacy of algorithms in reading humans: European views from within the struggles for a fairer AI [Conference presentation]. 2nd European Workshop on Algorithmic Fairness (EWAF’23), Zurich University of Applied Sciences, Winterthur, Switzerland.
  • Scharenberg, A., & Barassi, V. (2022). Algorithmic resistance in Europe and the question of collective agency [Conference presentation]. 23rd Annual Conference of the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR): Decolonising the Internet, Technological University Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.
  • Barassi, V., Patra, R., Scharenberg, A., & Poux-Berthe, M. (2022). AI errors, their human rights impacts and the role of mainstream media in Europe [Conference presentation]. 9th European Communication Conference (ECC): Rethink Impact, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.
  • Poux-Berthe, M. (2022). Ageist technologies, ageist societies? Understanding the discourse about old age and digital technologies in France [Conference presentation]. 9th European Communication Conference (ECC): Rethink Impact, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.
  • Barassi, V. (2022). AI and the Western illusion of human nature: Anthropology’s fight against human reductionism and its interdisciplinary future [Conference presentation]. Royal Anthropological Institute (RAI) Conference 2022: Anthropology, AI and the Future of Human Society, London, England.
  • Barassi, V. (2021). The human error in AI and the conflicts over algorithms [Conference presentation]. VIII STS Italia Conference: Dis/Entangling Technoscience—Vulnerability, Responsibility and Justice, University of Trieste, Trieste, Italy.

Doctoral theses:

  • Patra, R. (2026). Reimagining technoscience from the margins: Caste, sanitation work, and the making of inclusive technological futures [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. University of St. Gallen.
  • Poux-Berthe, M. (2024). On digital ageism and beyond: How older adults unfold aging and technology relations in France [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. University of St. Gallen.

Knowledge-sharing activities:

  • Machines that fail us [Audio podcast]. University of St. Gallen. https://www.unisg.ch/en/news/podcasts/machines-that-fail-us/
  • Machines that fail us: Building a public debate about AI errors, their human rights implications, and our democratic futures [Conference, June 2024]. University of St. Gallen, St. Gallen, Switzerland. (Event information available here; Recordings available here).