The future is always coming, even if it sometimes catches us off guard. It is worth being vigilant, moving forward. But beware of "fair charlatans" who talk about immortality or transhumanism, those who advocate that thanks to science and technology, we can become creatures far superior to humans. “What is this about us going to be cyborgs? The only implants people want are hair implants and they go to the gym to do squats to get a nice ass. That's all we want. Long hair and a rounded ass, not cables and antennas”, the paleontologist and co-director of Atapuerca Juan Luis Arsuaga (Madrid, 1954) assured this Monday at the inauguration of the eighth edition of the Forum Edita Barcelona, which is held until Wednesday under the motto The future that comes
Arsuaga is one of the researchers who best knows the human being and its evolution from the origins, also a best-selling author with titles such as The chosen species, Our body or The life told by a sapiens to a Neanderthal, the latter written with four hands. with Juan José Millàs. It is therefore not surprising that for this look at the unknown posed this year by the meeting organized by the Gremi d'Editors de Catalunya and the UPF Barcelona School of Management they have decided to start with someone who seems to treasure the keys of the past. "There is no need to be afraid of technology in relation to art or culture," he stated. “Today it is super developed, but has that produced better writers than Shakespeare, better painters than Caravaggio or better poets than Garcilaso? Absolutely".
In conversation with the journalist and director of Cultura|s of La Vanguardia, Sergio Vila-Sanjuán, Arsuaga explained that this summer, he took advantage of a visit to Atapuerca by the painter Miquel Barceló, “what is art?”. "I don't know, if he knew he wouldn't do it," he replied. “If we knew how to reduce it to a series of algorithms, art would cease to exist”, he reflected. Just like good jokes, which defy logic and surprise you because you didn't expect it. He gave an example: “My girlfriend says that I am optimistic. Well, she is not my girlfriend yet. That, he assures him, can never be supplanted by AI, "which is based on algorithms, on programs and systems that follow an Aristotelian logic, it is not programmed creatively." So, he predicts, it only poses a serious threat to writers without a look of their own. "And it seems good to me that they disappear, for that it is better that the AI do it."
In his talk with Vila-San Juan, co-director of Forum Edita together with Patrici Tixis and Javier Aparicio, Arsuaga, a follower of Epicurus, "the great outlaw of history", confessed that he is interested above all in authors with lives of their own, "more action rather than reflection” (Stevenson or Cervantes over Jules Verne) and scientists like Jacques Monod, with whom he identifies, who want to have a voice in society.
In addition to Arsuaga, Forum Edita has the participation of some thirty specialists who, over two days, Tuesday and Wednesday, will try to imagine the many ways Artificial Intelligence will affect the world of books (Jorge Carrión, Josep Maria Ganyet , Daniel Fernández...), they will analyze the trends of the sector (Rüdiger Wischenbart), they will reflect on their future (Tomasz Frankowski) and they will celebrate an unexpected present that nobody saw coming, the massive return of young people to reading, with a round table and a meeting with the young Majorcan author Joana Marcús.
