CLAUDIO PAOLUCCI & ROCCO TANICA

Biography

Claudio Paolucci is Full Professor of Semiotics and Philosophy of Language at the University of Bologna, where he coordinates the PhD programme in Philosophy, Science, Cognition and Semiotics. One of Umberto Eco's last students and collaborators, he has served since 2014 as Scientific Director of the International Centre for Humanistic Studies, founded by Eco, and since 2024 as President of the Italian Society for the Philosophy of Language. His publications include Structuralism and Interpretation (Bompiani, 2010), Umberto Eco (Feltrinelli, 2017), Persona (Bompiani, 2020), and Born Cyborgs: What Generative Artificial Intelligence Tells Us About Being Human (Sossella, 2025).

Rocco Tanica is a musician, composer, writer and comedian. He is a co-founder of Elio e le Storie Tese and co-author of most of the band's repertoire. Alongside his musical career, he has worked extensively in radio, theatre, television and film as both writer and performer.
His books include Scritti scelti male (Badly Chosen Writings; Bompiani, 2008; La nave di Teseo, 2023), Lo sbiancamento dell'anima (The Whitening of the Soul; Mondadori, 2019), and Non siamo mai stati sulla Terra (We Have Never Been on Earth; il Saggiatore, 2022).
The latter was the first book in the world to be co-written with artificial intelligence. Since then, Tanica has become a passionate, knowledgeable and sophisticated user of AI in his creative work.