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Department of Philosophy - FILO

Seminar When the white coat meets the code: medical professionals and Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Italy negotiating with trust and boundary work

19 February 2026

6th STS Lab

  • 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
  • Online on Microsoft Teams and in person : Sala Apollo, Via Zamboni 38, Bologna
  • Health, Science & Technology In English

How to partecipate

Free admission

Program

As AI is deployed, medical professionals undergo technology-driven challenges, such as maintaining control over the diagnostic process and renegotiating their tasks and areas of expertise. In this article, we explore the social implications of AI in the Italian healthcare system. We do this by investigating the multiple factors that co-construct trust in AI systems. We also examine the various forms of boundary work that professionals use to redefine their authority and professional autonomy. Firstly, our findings suggest that different assemblages of trustworthiness collate into three trusting attitudes (epistemic-infrastructural, institutional-regulatory, and relational-practical), showing how trust in medical tools is configured in the AI age. Secondly, clinicians perform three strategies of boundary work (defensive, regulatory and transformative) to negotiate their roles and expertise as AI contests workflows, impacts decision-making authority, and redefines professional boundaries.

Speakers

  • Laura Sartori

    Department of Political and Social Sciences

  • Marianna Musmeci


    Department of Political and Social Sciences

Contacts

Attachments

Event Within the Framework of:

STS Lab

from

The STS Lab is a monthly seminar for presenting research in the field of Science and Technology Studies. The meetings are conceived as opportunities to share and to discuss ongoing projects and research addressing topics like: the sociotechnical aspects of data infrastructures and information systems; the social impact of data infrastructures on populations, society and institutions; gender and social studies of science; studies on online sociality, including network cultures and digital communities; ethnographic, digital and mixed methods for the study of the production and use of scientific and technological artifacts.

  • Politics of Digitization. A Research Path
  • When the white coat meets the code: medical professionals and Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Italy negotiating with trust and boundary work
  • Communicating Social Innovation: the co-creation of values, practices and objects