EDITORIAL: AN INFINITE SPACE, JUST LIKE SOLITUDE

The development of artificial intelligence in the new century has assumed dizzying speed. The quality of the products that are available today is so astounding that they have not yet been digested by the structure of human society: those who use them become part of a community of their own, using terms that no one else understands, pursuing completely different social, economic, relational and cultural goals.

Our generation was born and developed analogue. Not only that. It grew up in what remained of a working-class and peasant world, and has had to struggle to adapt to the end of industrial capitalism and to find a place in service capitalism, which offers no secure place: neither work, nor social and family structure, nor safety nets built by welfare, nor common cultural references. The main characteristic of human life is speed, transience, interchangeability, a return to eras in which the life of the individual is generally zero.

Technological change brings seemingly miraculous improvements, but only for a very small elite that can access them. For the others, artificial intelligence standardises questions and answers, flattens existing (but also acceptable and perceivable) differences between individuals, increases the available space (with the creation of unlimited telematic parallel worlds – the metaverse), infinitely increases the possibility of making contact with other human beings and, paradoxically, increases loneliness disproportionately.

In this dossier we try to do as little moralising as possible. We try to understand and explain. The innovation of artificial intelligence cannot be prevented. What seems extraordinary today will presumably be surpassed within a few years, so that everyone will need a tool, a hook into the analogue world, which is where our brains work best.