Whenever an invention capable of simplifying more or less costly tasks emerges, a significant portion of society's imaginative workforce is concentrated on developing this invention and finding a social place for it. In other words, many other issues are neglected in favor of focusing on the one that seems to promise the most dazzling future. There is, therefore, an expansion of imagination on the one hand, and considerable pressure on the other (some disciplines are filled with disciples; others are emptied). However, this shift in imaginative focus occurs amidst a kind of revolutionary explosion in which it becomes difficult to assess whether we will find "progress" in the direction indicated by the new invention.

In a world of ever-expanding digital infrastructure, addiction, confusion, distortion, and disorientation are becoming increasingly difficult to avoid. With each passing day, it becomes harder to distinguish what is true or real from what is false or synthetic. This can also be expressed another way: we are progressively accepting more artificial components in our lives. However, the most thorny central confusion lies in trying to understand what artificial intelligence (AI) represents. Since the universe of consciousness is still a mystery, there are two opposing schools of thought regarding AI and the role it can play in our society.

When technophiles feel challenged, they often brandish the example of Socrates's wary attitude toward a new technology that would change the destiny of humanity: writing. Socrates believed that the transmission of knowledge should be oral, that codifying our thoughts in writing would weaken our memory and intellectual abilities. Instead, his disciple, Plato, used this technology to bequeath us his thoughts, and also those of his teacher. Well, now we find ourselves at the exact opposite of that moment of technological transition.

In April of this year, TED held its annual symposium to discuss advances in technology and design (mostly from Silicon Valley). The opening keynote address was given by Carole Cadwalladr, an investigative journalist who was subsequently sued. a talk in 2019. On that occasion, he spoke about the Brexit vote and the influence of Facebook – the network that most spread biased or outright false information. Cadwalladr had already written a report on the scandal of Cambridge Analytica in The Observer, but the TED conference was what billionaire Arron Banks used to sue her. The journalist's case has been a paradigmatic case of SLAPP (strategic litigation against public participation), a technique – which we Catalans are well aware of – in which a lawsuit is used as a deterrent exemplary punishment. Despite the harshness of the warning, Cadwalladr returned to the TED symposium to address the CEOs of Silicon Valley: this, gentlemen, seems a digital coup d'état.

In April 1997, the writer Maria Àngels Anglada gave a conference in Olot organized by Ecofòrum, an association that defended that economic development always must be tied up to environmental awareness. Anglada's lecture —titled Nature and Greek culture—he began by explaining that the effects of human actions on forests had already been documented by the classics (who, as if they knew how to predict the future, sometimes lamented our reckless attitude). The works of the Greeks even left evidence of fires that, without the personnel or tools to fight them, could burn for months. Fires, then, have always existed. Heat, there always has been. These are the arguments used by climate crisis deniers in the face of the infernal heat we have suffered in recent years and the disasters they have brought.

A few years ago, it seemed that Catalonia's aspiration was to become a country linked to research and innovation. The idea, they said, was to be a kind of European Massachusetts. And while it's true that good things were once done in more scientific disciplines, Catalan researchers graduating from the faculties of Philosophy and Humanities face a very hostile or even impractical terrain. Neither the educational nor the cultural system have sufficient mechanisms or resources to allow them to continue developing, not just normally, but minimally.

The birdcage is the usual one on these spring days; it's sunny and there's no north wind blowing. Suddenly, I hear my roommate hurrying up the stairs. He opens the study door and says, harried, "You haven't heard anything, have you? The power's gone out everywhere." In our one-street village, activity hadn't changed much. The swallows were chirping, I was working at my desk, Pedro was in the vegetable garden. Everyone was calm. On the other hand, my roommate, who had been coming from Banyoles, where everyone was busy, and who had listened to the radio on the way home in the car, had the apocalypse on his mind. Cyberattack, chaos, uncertainty.