Il diritto nell’epoca degli algoritmi. Il pensiero giuridico di Francesco Gentile tra controllo sociale e comunicazione intersoggettiva

Drawing on the conception of law as an intersubjective communication developed by Francesco Gentile, this article explores the impact of algorithmic systems on the legal order. It argues that artificial intelligence does not simply introduce new tools, but rather intensifies a tendency already inherent in modernity: the progressive formalization of legal decision-making. Engaging with Hans Kelsen’s Pure Theory of Law and with Jü rgen Habermas’s distinction between instrumental and communicative rationality, the article shows how algorithmic reasoning tends to displace prudential judgment with procedural logic, thereby narrowing the scope for interpretation, responsibility, and attribution. From this perspective, the central risk lies not so much in the possibility of error in automated decisions, but in the transformation of law into a regulatory apparatus without interlocutors. The challenge posed by artificial intelligence to law thus emerges not as a merely technical issue, but as one that concerns the very nature of legality itself, understood as a relational practice grounded in mutual recognition between subjects.