Gradually Artificial Intelligence has become increasingly leading in our efforts to understand people’s perceptions, preferences, and longings. New technologies offer an unprecedented capacity in human history to collect, process, and analyze huge volumes of information. The use of machine learning tools and robots in the field of cognitive computing, by the hand of advanced analytics, allow useful conclusions to be reached in timeframes that would otherwise be impossible.
An example of this is the Diálogos study, recently developed by the Meetings of the Future Foundation, Merlin Research and with the support of the VTR Foundation, in addition to the Ministry of Science and the CNID. Through the use of these new tools, this research managed to collect more than 15 thousand conversations about the future of people throughout Chile. Of these, more than one hundred thousand ideas were captured, which were subsequently poured into a report that allowed to conclude that Chileans, with different nuances by geographical area, feel a profound uncertainty about the future.
Likewise, the study found that one in four people in Chile spontaneously expressed wanting a “fairer” future, deepening more equality for all. This perspective is most strongly represented among young segments and in people from households whose head of household has completed higher education. A second group placed more emphasis on the importance of tranquility, peace, and security.
One fact that keeps drawing attention is that the interviewees were able to speak freely and unrestrictedly, thanks to the use of a cognitive robot, which allowed them to elaborate on all aspects they wanted to address during that dialogue. In other words, these technologies opened a new horizon in terms of people’s ability to participate in making their views and concerns known, no longer responding mechanically to multiple choices, proposed by a third party, but contributing with their own words and ideas, thus promoting a more participatory and deliberative democracy emerging from citizenship.
However, there is still a way to go. The Ministry of Science is currently developing the country’s first National Artificial Intelligence Policy, which seeks to make efficient use of technology and address people’s concerns about possible discriminatory biases or misuse of collected data. The Ministry’s goal is to achieve a masification of these technological tools that will allow Chile to be incorporated into the so-called “knowledge economy”.
Diálogos was a first exercise that undoubtedly opens many doors to demystify the use of Artificial Intelligence at the service of people and certainly wrests the appetite for others to adopt it as well. In this way, the trend suggests that in the medium term other institutions, following in the footsteps of Fundación VTR, specialized in the development of audiovisual content of high educational value, are able to see the potential of this technologies and dare to adopt the range of possibilities that open up with the field of artificial intelligence and thus , little by little but at the speed we need, deploy it fully in that future that looked so far away but is already here.
The content poured into this opinion column is the sole responsibility of its author, and does not necessarily reflect the editorial line or position of El Mostrador.
