On the landing of the stairs, two women in their 70s catch up on their business. And suddenly, it happens: magnified and reverberated by the infinite stairwell, the two words are heard that, for some time now - they arrived almost without realizing it - are on everyone's lips, every day in the world: "intelligence artificial intelligence”: “I don't want an artificial intelligence that attends me at the bank or on my mobile phone, I want a person at the window who smiles at me”, says one of them, to which the other agrees emphatically.
That digitization is essential for the world to continue working is a fact. The very evolution of events testifies to it. During the pandemic we had to do reports or class without leaving home; buy all kinds of products online; meet people or talk to relatives at a distance; learn to make bread and yoga through Instagram or watch movies on the couch.
Some of these actions we already carried out before, but after 2020 they normalized in our day-to-day life because it was seen that, in many aspects, they made our lives easier. Connectivity and other essential digital services became common goods in record time. But the way we work, shop, connect and play continues to change constantly and at a breakneck pace, and not everyone is equally prepared.
Technology demonstrated three years ago, and continues to do so, that it is an opportunity to rebuild and relaunch our economy and society, just as the industrial revolution served as a lever for growth since the end of the 18th century. In economic terms, the digital transformation of Spanish companies could lead to an increase in gross domestic product of 3.1% in the next five years, according to a recent Opinium study for Ricoh. The report reveals that companies that have automated their administrative tasks have experienced additional productivity growth of 14%.
“In addition, digitization can drive innovation and the creation of new business models, which can lead to the creation of highly specialized employment and, therefore, new jobs, in areas such as artificial intelligence, big data and cybersecurity; Digitization also means an increase in the competitiveness of the Spanish economy at a global level ”, points out Sara Argüello Martínez, technical secretary of ReDigital, the economy and digital transformation registry of the General Council of Economists, which was created at the end of 2021 to help these professionals in their role as allies of companies in their digital transformation. This body also highlights the positive effects of digitization in the social sphere, by improving people's quality of life and accessibility to services and products, "for example, the digitization of education and training can improve training of workers and their adaptation to technological changes, while the digitization of health can improve medical care and reduce associated costs”, Argüello specifies.
Also in 2021, the Digital Rights Charter of the State Secretariat for Digitization and Artificial Intelligence (SEDIA) was published, drawn up by a group of experts. Its objective was to offer a reference framework that would guarantee the rights of citizens in the new digital reality, based on the new challenges posed by the adaptation of current rights to the virtual and digital environment. According to the document on its first page, "All people have identical rights in the digital and analog environment, without prejudice to the limitations that, in accordance with the Constitution and the laws, could be established taking into account the peculiarities of each area. ”.
And it is that all change implies collateral damage; digitization was not going to be an exception. In a world in constant technological advance, the widening of the digital divide is the associated damage that must be minimized. This break can come from insufficient internet access due to a lack of coverage in the area of residence, due to its insufficient quality, due to its unaffordable cost, or due to a lack of skills and competencies.
In our country, 88% of the population has internet access points, according to a Eurona report. This means that there are still 5.6 million Spaniards who cannot connect regularly. In rural areas, connectivity is of poorer quality and 2.4 million people still do not have internet access of at least 100 Mbps (megabits per second) through fixed networks, although it seems that the days of this problem are numbered.
Just this May, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation has announced that, starting in June, it will offer broadband via satellite with 100% coverage throughout the country. It will be 100 Mbps for 35 euros per month for those areas with less than 50 Mbps. Spain has a high average connectivity within the European Union, with a general coverage of a very high capacity fixed network, only after Malta, Denmark and Luxembourg , according to the European Commission.
The fact that many essential procedures are carried out exclusively digitally prevents these people from accessing the benefits or support they need and, therefore, this fuels their fragility and isolation. This is something that especially affects people with disabilities. “What happens to a blind or deaf person who cannot or simply does not want to have internet or a mobile phone? And what about someone who sees and hears but does not have the skills to function with a computer or a smartphone? It cannot be that, for example, a website or an app of a basic service for citizens is unintelligible”, questions Xisca Rigo, psychologist and accessibility technician.
According to the statistical data of the Continuous Register (INE) on January 1, 2021 there were nine and a half million older people, 20% of the Spanish population. According to Eurostat data, almost half of the people between 65 and 74 who use the Internet have low digital skills. Around 4.4 million people residing in Spanish homes have some disability or limitation, also according to the INE. The use of digital technologies in these groups is increasingly important, but there are devices, services and technologies that are not adapted to their needs. The lack of digital skills also decisively affects minors in education.
On the one hand, "administrations and companies must provide the entire population, and especially the most vulnerable people, with access to information by promoting direct contact, either by phone or with personal assistants, such as passenger guides. blind or with reduced mobility who accompany them in the main airports when they travel. Along with digitization, it is necessary to offer multi-channel to the user and not forget the human factor, that people continue to attend you if you need it ”, adds Rigo. On the other hand, he emphasizes the dissemination to society of inclusive technological innovations, "because there are still people who are unaware that there is such an application or service that can change their lives."
To minimize the digital divide, "it is essential to improve access to the Internet, especially in rural or disadvantaged areas, such as installing infrastructure and high-speed networks, or providing mobile devices and free Wi-Fi access points to those who need it." ”, comments Sara Argüello Martínez, technical secretary of ReDigital. Training and education is also essential "through training programs to improve people's digital skills, both in the workplace and personally."
All this, “without forgetting the incentives (discounts or subsidies for the purchase of digital devices and services and financial aid programs for small businesses) for the adoption of technology in groups that, otherwise, could be left behind, and a close collaboration public-private, taking advantage of the opportunity offered by the NextGenerationEU funds launched by the EU”, he concludes. Nor should we forget the updating of the administrations, the industry and the health system, in short, a profound cultural transformation where the people who must be at the center of all decisions, as prescribed by the Economic and Social Council of Spain in its Report on the digitization of the economy
Recently, the news broke: Geoffrey Hinton, known as the 'godfather of AI' for his work in the field of neural networks -they simulate the behavior of human neurons-, was leaving Google and warning of the risks of AI for the humanity. In an interview with the New York Times, the researcher assured that we are heading towards a society incapable of distinguishing what is true and what is not.
Just remember one of the first deepfakes or people recreated with AI, in this case Barack Obama, who already appeared in a video in 2018 in which he tried to raise awareness of the danger of applications that realistically swap faces and voices. This Obama was none other than the American actor, comedian, director and screenwriter Jordan Peele, modified in physique and voice by artificial intelligence.
Not long ago, the networks were filled with a photograph of Pope Francis clad in an enormous white feather coat. And closer to home, the newspaper El Mundo published the image of an unlikely reconciliation between Pablo Iglesias, former leader of Podemos, and the second vice president, Yolanda Díaz, Minister of Labor and leader of Sumar, together and apparently happy in a political and then having a great time in a bar. All these images were also the work of programs based on artificial intelligence, such as DALL•E 2, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion, plus subsequent retouching with Photoshop.
In a matter of weeks, not months, in the midst of the frantic race to improve AI tools, Hinton, we said, has decided to leave the company to be able to speak from outside the company about the dangers posed by this technology. . According to him, we are very close to creating artificial intelligences much smarter than a human being, an assumption that, until recently, was not conceived beyond movies like "Her" and science fiction series like "Black Mirror".
In 2021 corporate investment in AI exceeded 270,000 million dollars and marked its all-time high. Although last year a little less was spent on this technology than the previous year, in the last decade the investment has multiplied by thirteen, according to data from Stanford and Our World in Data. The dismissal of the researcher was another of the alarms that sounded these days: last March, several academics and researchers published an open letter asking that the development of artificial intelligence be stopped for at least six months in order to work within a regulatory framework. that minimizes risks to society.
In Italy, Garante, the data protection authority, asked OpenAI, creator of Chat GPT, to take the chatbot offline in the country. Days later, Chat GPT was reactivated because the company assured that it will offer greater visibility of its privacy policy and provide a new form for users in the European Union to exercise their right to oppose the use of their personal data to train their models. . The Spanish Agency for Data Protection has already announced that it is investigating ChatGPT for "possible breach of regulations".
Lately, there is also talk every day about whether artificial intelligence is going to put us out of work. “It is not clear how artificial intelligence will affect work, what happens with new technologies or innovations is often impossible to foresee. Asbestos was a fabulous and cheap insulator, but in the end it was found to kill. The creators of the internet did not have in mind that our way of relating would end up changing, through social networks such as Facebook, Tinder or WhatsApp; They also did not have in mind that the deep web would appear”, explains Ariel Guersenzvaig, expert in design and technology ethics and professor at ELISAVA.
And he continues: “many media are making critihype, a mixture of criticism and hype, they create great expectations about the potential of this technology to later criticize it and alarm society about the great danger it poses. There is talk of the possibility of creating an artificial mind that can think like us and that is not real. And then society is made to believe that AI is very dangerous because of its great power and this is not true. For Guersenzvaig, the dangerous thing is not the AI, but that it reproduces our worst behaviors: "if we are in a racist and sexist society, it is logical that artificial intelligence reproduces this human behavior."
On the other hand, it must be borne in mind that AI is not infallible. For example, the Chat GPT language model sometimes makes mistakes, such as inventing information sources: it is just a pre-trained generative language model, a system that produces texts based on combinations of words and phrases by doing statistical calculations and the reproduces - exactly like a parrot - but has no understanding of that response. It is designed to respond like a human: hence its goal is to respond, not to function as a reliable source of information.
Artificial intelligence has the potential to improve people's lives and solve major societal challenges, but it can also increase threats to security and privacy and erode trust in democracy. We must focus on protecting consumers from the risks associated with technology and work together with companies and the government to face these challenges. CEOs of innovative AI companies have an ethical, moral, and legal responsibility to ensure the safety and security of their products, and must comply with existing laws to protect American citizens."
This was the summary of the US government's position on artificial intelligence after the meeting between the vice president, Kamala Harris, with the leaders of the big technology companies in early May. The White House has already announced that it will dedicate an additional $140 million to promoting “responsible innovation” and has secured commitments from several companies in the industry to put their products under scrutiny at a cybersecurity conference in August.
With the unprecedented corporate rush to create better artificial intelligence, and also with organizations around the world embracing AI in their business units, global artificial intelligence bills have grown significantly in recent years. years, not only in the United States, but in the European Commission, also happening in Spain. In fact, the EU has just approved the bill that aims to establish legal and ethical limits on the use and development of artificial intelligence. It is the first attempt worldwide to regulate this technology.
“The limits are set by us (society and, above all, the power groups), where we decide that those limits have to be. One of those ethical limits is clearly the devirtualization of human actions and values. There are things that AI will never be able to do the same as a human being, such as taking care of a baby in its cradle, trying a prisoner or writing a novel, ”concludes the professor.
After, after their digitization process against the clock together with the closure of offices, many banking entities drastically reduced their opening hours to the public - who did not go to the bank one day and find it closed at twelve in the morning? -, they had to back down after the success of the collection of signatures for the lack of protection of the elderly and expand them again in certain offices to provide coverage, above all, to these people. They also improved the usability and expanded the services of their websites and mobile applications, at the same time that they strengthened their telephone assistance to carry out procedures that previously could only be carried out over the counter.
So that blind people can be autonomous in their daily lives, from going down the street and taking public transport to buying a product in the supermarket, a Murcian company, Neosistec, together with the University of Alicante, devised NaviLens, some labels located in places such as metro stations, bus stops and museums or public buildings. The user only has to download an app and walk with the mobile camera out, so that it can scan the labels, even at a long distance, and report the location and characteristics of the environment in real time, as well as schedules/ incidents in public transport and situation of platforms or access and exit doors.
This technology already works in places like the subway in New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris, in the subway and bus network in Barcelona, Madrid, Australia, Canada, etc. We also find it in museums around the world and food or household cleaning product containers so that users can easily access product information (ingredients, allergens, etc.) and have help on the purchase line .
Thinking, above all, of the group of people with disabilities or reduced mobility, as the accessibility technique commented, there are already airports that offer assistants who pick up the user at a meeting point, help them with their luggage, accompany them to the airport counter, billing and facilitate the necessary procedures for billing. This is the case of AENA, which has this figure, which also accompanies the passenger to the boarding area, helps him pass the relevant controls and accompanies him to his seat. A support that is also given at the arrival airport and if there are connections.
When traveling by train, Adif's ABOUT service allows you to request a wheelchair to be transferred through the station and receive assistance to get on and off the train; In the case of a hearing disability, technical aids are available for better communication, and in the case of a visual disability, accompaniment is also offered when moving around the station and assistance to get on and off the train and find a seat. For people with intellectual disabilities or comprehension difficulties, orientation and accompaniment are given through the station to the seat on the train.
In the Click_A project, launched by the Red Cross in Andalusia, digital volunteers offer support to older people to improve their technological skills. For example, they help them manage their mobile phones, do banking, buy online safely or detect fake news on social networks. The non-profit association EmancipaTIC also trains seniors, so that they not only learn to use what exists today but are prepared to understand what will come tomorrow and thus enjoy active ageing.
016 Accessible for deaf people is the telephone number for information and legal advice on gender violence offered by the Government Delegation against Gender Violence of the Ministry of Equality together with the State Confederation of deaf people and which allows users to make the call through the SVIsual video interpretation platform. Also from the Red Cross, with the pandemic, a new digital service was created based on the capabilities of artificial intelligence, which uses the Alexa assistant as a voice channel to reach people who do not know how to use a computer or navigate on their mobile phone. Physical exercise is encouraged through videos and first aid tips are offered.
