THE COLOUR OF AI IS RED

Red is considered to be the colour of love and is usually associated with power, strength and emotion. It is frequently used to draw attention or highlight things or warn of an undesirable situation. As a colour it is perceived as being attractive and powerful and among the many well-known firms that use red for their brand logos are Coca-Cola, Vodafone, Netflix, Santander, Canon, Levis and H&M.

Red is also the colour of a powerful and famous film poster featuring a closeup of Joaquin Phoenix in a plain red shirt and with his iconic ginger moustache. The poster is for the magnificent film Her.

This clearly sci-fi film takes us through a romantic drama, hence – I suppose – the choice of colour for the poster. It won an Oscar and Golden Globe for Best Original Screenplay in 2014 and, put briefly, the plot is as fol- lows: a man, Theodore, becomes romantically involved with Samantha, but don’t jump to conclusions yet: she is not a woman and this is anything but a normal relationship. Everything here is very special, different and ahead of its time. The relationship is between a man and his very feminine virtual assistant with artificial intelligence and a human voice. As you can probably guess, they fall in love albeit with a major difference that I will come back to later.

Many of us use virtual assistants on a daily basis these days. Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, Samsung’s Bixby and Microsoft’s Cortana are hugely popular and make our lives a little easier. These applications learn our daily routines and preferences, and gradually assimilate our day to day behaviour.

We are all familiar with advances in technology of past years, as well as more recently with a new term which is on everyone’s lips during these days: «generative artificial intelligence».

The outstanding and most popular example of this technology is probably –as you will no doubt have guessed– the well-known ChaptGPT, an application that marks a new watershed. The initials in the name stand for «Generative Pretrained Transformer».

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Its potential is transformational and although it has far-reaching effects, it has also attracted detractors and considerable criticism.

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This artificial intelligence chatbot was launched on 30 November 2022 by OpenAI and within just a few months had reached millions of users, earning the attention of the whole world due to its detailed responses.

Its arrival has marked the beginnings of a new revolution. In February of this year Google unveiled its Bard Service and the same month also saw Meta launch LLaMA. In short, many companies have joined the new technology race.

This type of artificial intelligence creates new and original content us- ing algorithms and automated learning configurations based on existing information. It can produce texts, images, videos and songs.

Consensus exists regarding the massive impact it will have on industry and indeed on all our activities. Its potential is transformational and although it has far-reaching effects, it has also attracted detractors and considerable criticism.

This is where our fears about AI enter the picture, not least because its main creators have alerted to the «danger of extinction» which the technology poses for humanity.

By no means a minor issue!

Perhaps it is better to return to the film.

In Her, Theodore and Samantha fall in love and evolve, just as we all do, although with a subtle difference: Saman tha does so exponentially and Theodore discovers one day that she has been unfaithful. She has continued to grow, developing her own software as well as hardware; she is still in love with him but has also fallen in love with hundreds or even thousands of men. Indeed, Saman tha could even have millions of relation ships with other men.

However, she is the only one for Theo dore and he remains faithful to her.

Now that we are in the air again, travelling alone or with someone on the flight, some of us probably in love also, allow me to repeat my customary advice. Follow the cabin crew’s instructions, fasten your seatbelts tightly because sharp bends lie ahead, even if we are on a plane.

Have a good flight.

The Other Stories From The Volcano

Las otras historias del volcán (“The other stories from the volcano”) is a book born out of grief that does not want to be forgotten. A book that speaks of the need to learn from mistakes. Of powerless victims and the importance of making sure they are not revictimized. Of the shame and neglect that underpin misfortune. Of sleepless nights, exhausting disbelief and of injustice that needs to be made visible.

Las otras historias del volcán is a book for charity that contains the best pictures of the volcano and its consequences, as well as first-hand testimonies from those affected by the eruption. A book written from the heart so that everyone knows what happened and so that future generations do not forget these events.

All proceeds will be used by NGO Tierra Bonita to help the victims of the crisis triggered by the eruption of the Tajogaite volcano in 2021.