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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.

Research reports:

  • 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.
  • 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.

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.

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). 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.

Doctoal theses:

  • Patra, R. (2025). 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.