Over 2500 attendees in two days, Maker Faire Sardinia 2024, the most international edition so far, closes its doors successfully and with a "first": the award ceremony in the three categories best maker, best artist and best AI. It's not easy for the jurors to decide among many original projects at the Fair.

The award for best digital fabricator goes to Diego Trazzi, a Piedmontese who moved to Mogoro; ceramist, uses a 3D printer specially designed to work with clay-based materials. The Irish Stephanie Johnson wins the best artist award: among the many designers, coming from the Fabricademy masters, she amazed with her "anatomic couture" textile project which creates clothes, using digital technology, inspired by the inside of the body human. It is a Sardinian school that takes the podium for the best application of AI in the manufacturing sector; the students of the Ianas -Ipsia Institute of Tortolì, led by the teacher Scilla Contu, win with their 3D "objects", generated on the Lumia website, a very recent tool that they have demonstrated they know how to master. Among the "special contents" of the Fair, the Ghostbusters Sardinia group received an out-of-competition award, definitely deserved for its creativity and enthusiasm.

The final day of the event, coordinated by Antonio Burrai, director of Fab Lab of Olbia, was enriched by the interesting discussion on the theme that the Maker Faire wanted to introduce, namely the evolution of artificial intelligence and its impact on daily life and on the different professional sectors. At the round table, the guests Antonella Fancello, professor of digital administration at the University of Sassari and member of Aica, Caterina De Roberto, head of L'Unione Sarda and vice-president Giulia Giornaliste Sardegna, Davide Cusumano, head of the medical physics unit at Mater Olbia, Costantina Cossu, EFT trainer Sardinia and teacher at the "Fermi" in Alghero, Battista Biggio, professor at the University of Cagliari and among the leading Italian experts in AI and cybersecurity.

From the experiences brought to the center of the exchange of opinions, and referring to one's own work environment, reflections on the ethical issue and responsibility in the use of AI arose; worrying challenges if we think about the issue of privacy or algorithmic biases - the systematic errors in judgment or interpretation which, experts have established, lead to an error of evaluation or the formulation of a less than objective judgment - or to the "hallucinations" of AI, generation of information that does not correspond to the truth. Despite this, from the first experiments, dating back to the 1950s and 1960s, up to the fourth industrial revolution (which we are experiencing), the transformation process imposed by AI, the speakers reiterate, is underway. It will have no setbacks and the great positive impacts it generates on our lives cannot be overlooked.