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The paper aims to examine the environmental challenges of artificial intelligence (AI) in EU law that regard both illicit uses of the technology, i.e. overuse or misuse of AI and its possible underuses. The aim of the paper is to show how such regulatory efforts of legislators should be understood as a critical component of the Green Deal of the EU institutions, that is, to save our planet from impoverishment, plunder and destruction.

To illustrate the different ways in which AI can represent a game-changer for our environmental challenges, attention is drawn to a multidisciplinary approach, which includes the analysis of the initiatives on the European Green Deal; the proposals for a new legal framework on data governance and AI; principles of environmental and constitutional law; the interaction of such principles and provisions of environmental and constitutional law with AI regulations; other sources of EU law and of its Member States.

Most recent initiatives on AI, including the AI Act (AIA) of the European Commission, have insisted on a human-centric approach, whereas it seems obvious that the challenges of environmental law, including those triggered by AI, should be addressed in accordance with an ontocentric, rather than anthropocentric stance. The paper provides four recommendations for the legal consequences of this short-sighted view, including the lack of environmental concerns in the AIA.

The environmental challenges of AI suggest complementing current regulatory efforts of EU lawmakers with a new generation of eco-impact assessments; duties of care and disclosure of non-financial information; clearer parameters for the implementation of the integration principle in EU constitutional law; special policies for the risk of underusing AI for environmental purposes. Further research should examine these policies in connection with the principle of sustainability and the EU plan for a circular economy, as another crucial ingredient of the Green Deal.

The paper provides a set of concrete measures to properly tackle both illicit uses of AI and the risk of its possible underuse for environmental purposes. Such measures do not only concern the “top down” efforts of legislators but also litigation and the role of courts. Current trends of climate change litigation and the transplant of class actions into several civil law jurisdictions shed new light on the ways in which we should address the environmental challenges of AI, even before a court.

A more robust protection of people’s right to a high level of environmental protection and the improvement of the quality of the environment follows as a result of the analysis on the legal threats and opportunities brought forth by AI.

The paper explores a set of issues, often overlooked by scholars and institutions, that is nonetheless crucial for any Green Deal, such as the distinction between the human-centric approach of current proposals in the field of technological regulation and the traditional ontocentric stance of environmental law. The analysis considers for the first time the legal issues that follow this distinction in the field of AI regulation and how we should address them.

The paper aims to examine the profound transformations engendered by the information revolution in order to determine aspects of what should be visible or invisible in human affairs. It seeks to explore the meaning of invisibility via an interdisciplinary approach, including computer science, law, and ethics.

The method draws on both theoretical and empirical material so as to scrutinise the ways in which today's information revolution is recasting the boundaries between visibility and invisibility.

The degrees of exposure to public notice can be understood as a matter of balance between access and control over information in a specific context, as well as a function of the ontological friction in a given region of the environment.

The originality of the case study on a new kind of recommender system is enhanced because of the procedural approach which is suggested to further develop the distinction between “good” and “evil” as anything that enriches, or damages, the informational complexity of the environment.

The paper suggests overcoming the polarization of today's debate on peer‐to‐peer (P2P) systems by defining a fair balance between the principle of precaution and the principle of openness. Threats arising from these file sharing applications‐systems should not be a pretext to limit freedom of research, speech or the right “freely to participate in the cultural life of the community”, as granted by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights from 1948. The paper aims to take sides in today's debate.

The paper adopts an interdisciplinary approach, including network theory, law and ethics. The method draws on both theoretical and empirical material so as to stress the paradox of the principle of precaution applied to P2P systems and why the burden of proof should fall on the party proposing that one refrain from action.

Censors and opponents of P2P systems who propose to apply the principle of precaution to this case deny the premise upon which that principle rests. “Levels of evidence” required by the precautionary principle show that – in many cases in which the outcomes of technology are ignored – another principle is needed for orienting action, namely, the principle of openness.

Alarm about how P2P systems undermine crucial elements of the societies often led to the ban of this technology. The paper illustrates why it should not be the case: rather than shutting these networks down, they should be further developed.

The paper provides the comprehensive picture of a far too often fragmented debate.