Pollicino AIdvisory publishes the Policy Brief “Design patterns and systemic risks”, examining the evolving legal and regulatory approaches to harms arising from digital platforms and AI systems.
The contribution analyses recent developments in both the United States and the European Union, highlighting a shift from content-based liability to a focus on system design and architecture. In particular, recent litigation on social media addiction and ongoing enforcement under the Digital Services Act signal a growing recognition that harm may stem not from individual outputs, but from the structural features of digital systems operating at scale.
Against this background, the Policy Brief develops a systemic understanding of risk in the digital environment, framing it as the product of interactions between design choices, algorithmic processes, and user behaviour. This perspective moves beyond traditional risk-based approaches, emphasising how risks propagate across layers of the digital ecosystem and generate cumulative effects on fundamental rights and societal processes.
A central focus of the analysis is the conceptual misalignment between Article 34 of the Digital Services Act and Article 9 of the AI Act. While the DSA adopts a systemic, context-dependent approach to risk—targeting platform architecture, recommender systems, and behavioural dynamics—the AI Act remains grounded in a system-centric and procedural model of risk management.
The Policy Brief argues that this divergence creates a regulatory gap, particularly in contexts where AI systems are embedded within complex platform environments. To address this, it proposes a systemic interpretation of Article 9 AI Act, capable of incorporating deployment contexts, behavioural effects, and distributed responsibilities across the value chain.
The analysis contributes to the broader European debate on AI governance, advocating for a more integrated and architecture-aware approach to risk management, aligned with the realities of contemporary digital ecosystems.
Download the pdf: Design patterns and systemic risks
