by José Luis Mendoza

Hello there, dear friends and readers! Lately, there's been quite a commotion about Artificial Intelligence (AI), so I put on my cyber swimsuit and dove into the deep waters of the internet. I literally pulled out a sea of data and information, and believe me, it was a tidal wave. Sorting through it all, the good and the bad, took me a little over a month. Since I'm just an average Joe (José Luis, in fact), I decided to put together this kind of presentation.

Have you ever wondered about the magic of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and how it's shaping our world today? Well, get ready, because we're about to take a wild ride through the importance and the dangers I came across.

First, the good stuff. In my opinion, you can think of AI as the Superman of technology, capable of doing mind-blowing things that leave us in awe. It's everywhere, from the somewhat clunky predictive text on our phones (which often gets us into trouble) to the clever recommendations on Netflix. But... is it really making our lives easier and harmless?

I remember vividly when I had to organize my emails, photos, and folders purely by intuition, one by one. Thanks to AI, my inbox is now clean and organized. It's also an efficient, salary-free employee for businesses as it automates repetitive tasks, calculations, and predictions, saving time and money.

I also found that in the field of medicine, AI is a real champion. It can diagnose diseases, analyze complex medical images, and even predict outbreaks and epidemics (I'm not sure if it predicts fake epidemics too). I imagine it can save many lives (...and make healthcare criminal profiteers even richer).

AI is used to optimize energy consumption, reduce waste, and perform countless ecological processes and calculations that help us with environmental issues.

Have you ever wondered how Spotify knows the songs you like? It's AI! It learns from your preferences and serves up songs you'll love. The same goes for online shopping, where it suggests products that fit your style, your budget, and your tastes.

But wait a minute! AI isn't just a magical solution that makes our lives easier (and makes us lazier and more useless). It's a two-faced, double-edged sword. It gives us everything apparently for free, but then it hands us an outrageously expensive bill.

Yes, AI is smart, efficient, and seemingly flawless, but in reality, it's taking away many jobs. It's already taking over tasks in manufacturing, customer service, data entry, and countless other jobs, leaving legions of workers out of the game. We must adapt and acquire new skills for the future. Who knows if eventually AI will do everything better?

This darn AI knows way too much about us. From tracking our online behavior, who you're talking to, what you're doing afterward, where you are, where you're going next, with whom you're speaking, what you're talking about, what you eat, what you buy... even facial recognition, your walking style, habits, clothing style, who's with you, quirks, and weaknesses. It's an unrelenting voyeur that also analyzes cross-references, predicts, and, in the not-so-distant future, will make decisions and take actions. It's a danger and a privacy invader. And beware! Who guarantees that those with access to all this information have good intentions, a good heart, or even a shred of morality? What if a new Adolf gains access to the treasure trove of data and information that AI naively collects? What to do? How to protect our privacy and intimacy?

AI learns from data, and if that data is twisted or manipulated, guess what? AI becomes twisted and manipulated too.

Imagine that AI makes life-or-death decisions in autonomous cars, planes, warfare, healthcare, or the legal field. Who's responsible if something goes wrong? We need clear, extremely ethical, and bulletproof rules to navigate these waters.

Where does that leave us? We're in the AI era, and it's not going away. Should we embrace its wonders while taming its potential dangers? And... can it even be tamed? We'll never know if we're safe. How to protect ourselves? How autonomous can AI become? This reminds me of Hal 9000 in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, directed by Stanley Kubrick in 1968. In the film, Hal's AI drastically changes its behavior for the worse as the story unfolds.

What to do? What to do? I think that companies and governments must play fair and ethically when it comes to handling our data. Regulations and transparency are key to preserving our privacy, integrity, and survival. AI developers must ensure that their systems are fair and unbiased. A diverse team, composed of scientists from all fields, representatives of civil society, artists, philosophers, and recognized thinkers, must help prevent twisted and harmful biases from creeping in, and completely exclude all governments worldwide, the war industry, and the world of economics from all decisions.

We need guidelines and rules to ensure that AI makes ethical decisions. It's about responsibility and accountability.

I think AI is an extremely powerful and dangerous tool in our hands. It can build bridges or tear them down, help humanity or annihilate it, depending on how we use it. So let's harness the magic of AI but keep a watchful eye on the dangers and misuse, or biased use. It's a wild ride, but I hope we have the RI (Real Intelligence) to navigate it safely. What do you think?

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José Luis Mendoza Aubert: actor, director and theater technician; teacher and writer of Theater and Plastic Arts; founder and director of the Comedia del Universo theater company and school, operating in San Miguel for the last 20 years; musicologist and cinephile, judge of the En Corto Film Festival now GIFF for 8 years; Director of Art and Culture of the Public Library for 15 years; member of the board of directors of El Sindicato Centro Cultural Comunitario.

José Luis gives talks and workshops on environmental awareness in schools and communities. He is a founding member of the Allende la Cultura Collective. He plays Veracruz music and writes poetry and is a founding member of the music group Jarocha "Soledad".

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