New tools change both what we can do and how we think.
I am interested in how we think. Technology expands human capability, but it also changes how we form judgments, create, learn, and work with others. With artificial intelligence, that change is happening faster than ever.
This website brings together three ways I explore that change: thinking, research, and building. It starts here, with unfinished, sometimes ephemeral thoughts. Further down, you’ll find my more systematic work on specific research questions and capabilities, selected publications, and personal projects that put ideas into practice.
Notebook
With AI agents becoming part of my daily routine, I increasingly shifted my research focus towards how we discover, understand, and communicate intent.
Thought / 2026-10-10AI-assisted learning and skill atrophyAI assistants are increasingly associated with the risk of skill atrophy. As they take over parts of our work, we may gradually lose the ability to perform those tasks…
Thought / 2026-10-09Attentional delegationAI Agents do work precisely so that humans do not have to attend continuously. But if delegation is too complete, the human loses situational awareness and may become…
Thought / 2026-10-08Seneca, and being humanI first read Seneca as a teenager, and I think his ideas may be more relevant than ever.
Research
I lead the Intelligent Software Systems group at NEC Laboratories Europe. Our work asks three connected questions: how agents can extend human capabilities; how perception and judgment can remain secure when AI mediates information; and how AI can accelerate scientific discovery.
A person’s cognitive budget is limited: there is only so much they can notice, hold in mind, evaluate, and decide. We are studying how agents can focus, guide, and…
Cognitive security / Security must also protect how people perceive and decide.AI increasingly selects, generates, and frames information before it reaches a person. Cognitive security asks how people can preserve informed, autonomous judgment…
Scientific discovery / Scientific discovery cannot depend only on what has already been measured.Many important questions lie in areas where data does not yet exist, is scarce, or is difficult and expensive to obtain. Progress therefore requires more than training…
Build
An idea changes when it becomes a working system. Building exposes the constraints, tradeoffs, and possibilities that research and description alone can miss.
AlternateDayZ builds on DayZ, a multiplayer survival game set in a post-apocalyptic world. It turns player sessions, world events, and interactions with a Discord bot…
Alterno / Some stories require worlds that do not yet exist.AlternateDayZ turns actions within an existing game into stories. But that game also defines what players can do, what can happen, and how the world can respond.…
Alterno Spatial Review / Creative intent must remain connected to implementation.Giving agents the ability to build a world does not tell them what its author intends. The author needs ways to inspect the experience, point to what matters, and guide…
About
I am Roberto Bifulco. I lead the Intelligent Software Systems group at NEC Laboratories Europe, build personal projects, and currently live in Milano.