At the heart of the digital transition, justice is no longer administered only in the courts. It is written in code, decided in protocols, hidden in filters. Institutions are no longer just buildings: they are platforms, dashboards, interfaces. But if the system works and yet excludes, can we really call it fair?

To explore this question, @Beppe and I have chosen to evoke two radical figures: Antigone, the goddess who disobeys to protect memory, and Lady Loki, the first gender fluid character in the Marvel universe, who subverts to open up new spaces. Together, they will help us re-read SDG 16 – Peace, Justice and Sound Institutions – with new eyes.

As usual, those looking for solutions will probably be disappointed. At best, you will find here some (hopefully) good cues to ask the right questions. In the full article, you will find real cases, open tensions and concrete avenues for a digital sustainability that does not just work, but knows how to include, listen and regenerate.

Antigone and Lady Loki
The courage to disobey algorithms

In 2025, justice is not only administered in the courts. It is written in code, decided in protocols, hidden in filters. Institutions are no longer just buildings: they are platforms, dashboards, interfaces. Yet, something does not add up. Because if the system works, but excludes, can we really call it fair?

To try to understand it, let us leave definitions aside and rely on symbols. Two figures accompany us on this journey: Antigone, the disobedient who buries what power wants to erase, and Lady Loki, the transformer who unmasks unjust rules. They are not digital heroines, but archetypes that help us ask the right questions. The ones that institutions often prefer to avoid.

Antigone: justice that does not ask permission

Antigone is no ordinary rebel. She is the one who chooses to bury her brother, despite the king’s ban. She is the voice that says ‘no’ when power imposes silence. She is the guardian of a higher justice, one that does not bend to the norm if the norm is unjust.

In the digital world, his gesture translates into actions that challenge planned oblivion. As one who defends a collective memory that a platform wants to remove. As one who denounces an algorithm that discriminates, even if it ‘works’. As one who protects an inconvenient testimony, even if the system considers it toxic.

Think of the cases of automatic moderation that remove content of social denunciation, confusing it with incitement to hatred. Or the digital archives of indigenous communities, often ignored by dominant language models. Or the whistleblowers who reveal malpractices in social scoring systems, and are punished for ‘violating policy’.

A concrete example? UNICRI’s Decolonising the Digital project, which works to make indigenous and minority narratives visible in AI systems. Because if AI only learns from what is mainstream, it ends up perpetuating oblivion.

In 2021, the European Parliament passed a resolution on the use of AI in criminal law, recognising two fronts: on the one hand, areas of conflict with substantive criminal law (who is responsible when a machine acts?); on the other hand, areas of procedural cooperation, where AI can improve practices. It is a first attempt to build a regulatory framework that does not sacrifice constitutional guarantees on the altar of efficiency. Antigone, today, would perhaps be right there: guarding the boundary between innovation and law, between automation and humanity. Antigone does not seek consensus. She seeks truth. And to do so, she is willing to sacrifice everything. Even her own reputation, her own access, her own visibility.

Lady Loki: justice that transforms

Lady Loki is the other face of justice. Not the one that guards, but the one that changes shape. It is the ambiguity that unmasks unjust rules, that subverts hierarchies, that opens up new spaces. It is the voice that says, “What if we changed everything?”

In the digital world, Lady Loki is the glitch that reveals the flaw in the system. She is the ethical hacker, the institutional jester, the algorithm that refuses to obey. He is the one who designs fluid platforms, capable of accommodating dissent. It is he who creates digital spaces where the rules are not fixed, but negotiable.

In the real world, Lady Loki inhabits projects such as Decidim, the open source platform born in Barcelona to allow citizens to co-design public policies. Not a petition, but a true infrastructure of fluid democracy, where rules are discussed, modified, shared.

It is also those who work on interfaces that do not hide doubt, but expose it. As in the case of the Algorithmic Justice League, which promotes participatory audits of AI systems to make them fairer, more human, more negotiable.

Lady Loki does not seek stability. She seeks possibility. It is justice that is not content to function: it wants to include, to transform, to reinvent.

When digital institutions are no longer enough

Today, many public institutions rely on private platforms to manage essential services: health, education, welfare. But these platforms, efficient as they are, are not always transparent. And they are not always designed to be inclusive.

An example? The vaccination booking system in some Italian regions, based on digital interfaces that exclude those without IT skills. Or the welfare portals that require SPID and PEC, but do not provide alternatives for those living in digital marginality.

In Italy, the courts in Pisa and Brescia are experimenting with legal support systems based on Data Lake, with thousands of judgments catalogued by concepts. This approach not only speeds up the processing of cases, but also narrows the gap between large law firms and small professionals. It is an example of how technology can democratise access to justice if it is designed to amplify human capabilities, not replace them.

Soundness is not only infrastructural. It is ethical. It is relational. It is the ability to listen, to correct, to evolve.

Antigone reminds us that institutions must be spaces of shared memory.
Lady Loki teaches us that they must be able to change form, when form excludes.

Algorithmic justice: between opacity and accountability

According to the OECD’s 2024 report, less than 20 per cent of public AI systems have independent audit mechanisms. Most automated decisions – from subsidy allocation to predictive surveillance – take place in opaque environments, where the citizen can neither understand nor challenge.

Yet, the algorithm is already an institution. It decides, it filters, it orders. But who controls it? Who designs it? Who corrects it?

Think of scoring systems for access to credit, which penalise those with a ‘non-compliant’ profile. Or personnel selection algorithms, which exclude candidates on the basis of invisible patterns. Or the predictive models used to identify ‘crime risk zones’, which often replicate territorial stereotypes.

An Italian example is the Giove project, software developed by the Polizia di Stato to support preliminary investigations through predictive analysis. Giove does not make autonomous decisions, but helps operators to identify recurrent patterns between apparently unrelated crimes. The system is subject to privacy impact assessment and supervised by human staff, as required by European guidelines. It is an experiment that raises crucial questions: to what extent can we delegate investigative intuition to an algorithm? And how can we ensure that prevention does not become surveillance?

Digital justice cannot be a simulation of fairness. It must be real accountability, access, contestability.

Digital sustainability: not only environmental, but also institutional

Talking about digital sustainability does not only mean reducing the environmental impact of technologies. It also means building institutions capable of enduring, of inclusion, of regeneration.

Think of community digital archives projects, such as those collecting evidence of migration and conflict. Or participatory governance systems that allow citizens to intervene in decision-making processes. Or platforms that integrate local knowledge into environmental AI models.

In Kenya, the Ushahidi project created a participatory platform to map crises and human rights violations. In Estonia, the digitisation of public services is accompanied by a strong investment in transparency and accessibility.

Antigone invites us to preserve the memory of territories, of cultures, of struggles.
Lady Loki invites us to subvert the rules that exclude, to design fluid systems, capable of adaptation.

Digital sustainability is also social justice. It is the right to be represented, heard, included. It is the possibility to transform institutions, not just to be subjected to them.

But there is one boundary that no technology will be able to cross: that of consciousness. As Federico Faggin reminds us, the fundamental difference between humans and machines is the ability to experience, to attribute meaning, to choose. No algorithm, however sophisticated, can replicate the principle of fairness, deep understanding, natural creativity. This is why justice, even in the time of AI, remains a human vocation.

Conclusion: justice is also imagination

Antigone reminds us that justice is memory. Lady Loki teaches us that justice is transformation. And the digital, if guided by these archetypes, can become a space of peace, equity and solid institutions.

But courage is needed. It takes vision. It takes the ability to see beyond the code, beyond the norm, beyond profit. Because true digital sustainability is not measured in gigabits, but in gestures of care and acts of conscious rebellion.

And then, perhaps, we can really build institutions that not only work, but that listen, include, transform. Just like Antigone. Just like Loki.