“I don’t want to sound like a prophet.in the dark, a Nostradamus who says that everything is going to end. I think that Technology is invaluable and I use itbut the joke is that it is an instrument and not something to which we are hostages, which is what is happening right now, that there is a tremendous addiction to many things, like the cell phone,” Juan Villoro (Mexico City, 1956).
He andwriter talks about his new book I’m not a robot: Reading and the digital society published Anagrama, where he reflects on the topic and warns that many people live a happy slavery glued to their cell phones.
“The book is a defense of creativity and the human condition, because we are the first generation that has to demonstrate that we still behave like humans, and the paradox is that we do it before a machine. I am very interested in the fact of living immersed in digital culture, how it has transformed the relationships between parents and children, education in schools, the way of writing, of understanding the world in general, even religions, everything is changing. transforming from these changes.”
Juan Villoro comments that He would have liked to read a chronicle of how the printing press changed life in the 15th century after the arrival of books in homes, schools or knowledge centers.
“I don’t know of a book of that type, but I wanted to write one for my time, because the changes we have had in recent years have been absolutely novel. We read in a totally different way than in previous centuries, I think it is worth reflecting on it and defending what is most valuable, which is that heritage of humanity that culture represents.”
Villoro declares that your goal with I’m not a robot is record the times we are living in.
“Our temptations were different. Before, to look for entertainment, you almost always opted for something slightly different from what you had already done, and today the algorithms propose us offers that challenge us in a very seductive way, because no one knows us better than our cell phone, but the algorithm gives you more of the same, while culture diversifies knowledge, it gives you the possibility of liking something that you didn’t know you could like. That is to say, culture leads you to something different while the algorithm leads you to similarity, it is the tyranny of the same and I believe that humanity depends largely on keeping open the options that have always been decisive for the species.” .
The interviewee mentions statistical studies that have covered the evolution of intelligence throughout the 20th century, such as the famous Flynn coefficient, who was an expert in linking statistics with the IQ.
“He discovered that throughout the 20th century, this ratio increased by 30 points, which is very significant, but this cognitive advance stopped in the 90s and began to decline at a rate of two points per decade; So we are becoming dumber because we use our mental faculties less, due to technology, and it is logical that we are decreasing in intelligence. But at the same time machines are increasing their own intelligence. Hence, there is already robot journalism that is replacing journalists in some fields and that artificial intelligence is being used in tasks that were previously done by humans. In fact, it is estimated that this impersonation could reach almost 80 percent of jobs by 2040, which is a lot.”
Are you a writer with your antennae alert to what is happening around you?
Yes and I wanted the book to be an essay chronicleor, that is, reflect on the topic and give our voices to specialists from many fields, but at the same time see how this has affected us all in the flesh, that is, the predicaments we have had with our partners, our children, colleagues and make a living portrait of the time.
Has the Internet changed everything?
It has positive things, but it has also brought a new form of alienation because we become hostages of that magic mirror that also makes us feel very good. It is a happy slavery, you see people on the Metro entering TikTok, Instagram, etc., and she is hypnotized and without thinking on her own, without learning anything substantial and she is fine with that, it is a kind of social anxiolytic.
Is the book a call to destroy machines?
No, but on the contrary, to live with them but understanding them better and trying to ensure that we are not the instruments of the machine, but the other way around, but is that they are such elaborate tools that they become prostheses that sometimes we consider necessary without them being so.
How can we live with technology without being held hostage?
I believe that we should have a somewhat primitive use of technology, in the sense that we should not bet all our cards on what happens on a digital screen. And that’s why I think it’s very good to read the screen from the culture of letters.from books, and read the world in this double key: the fast and fragmentary galaxy of networks and at the same time the more articulated world of libraries, bookstores, etc. So this combination seems to me to be the best way to achieve it. Culture is a treasure map and it is easier to get to what is useful to you, the culture of books allows you to read much more easily in the digital galaxy.
What do we need to achieve this?
All this requires training, it is a new education. I regret that there is not, for example, discussions in schools between parents and children with teachers of how to use the digital world, because they are new forms of behavior: to what extent should your children use the devices? To what extent should you get involved with this? That is to say, we need to train ourselves because we are the barbarians of a new era, so we have to educate ourselves in this era.
And those who grew up in this era?
Digital natives already relate naturally to the world of networks and screens, but at the same time they can understand it better if they discover the habit of reading that serves to understand diversity and how wonderful reading is.
Given that We are talking about artificial intelligence, let it ask you a question: “What role do you think writers and artists should play in reflecting on the impact of technology on society?”
A question asked by a robot (laughs). It is very interesting because it is appealing to the human role, that is, precisely what the book is about: how we, through literature and culture in general, keep alive these emotional capacities for overcoming pain, for self-motivation. It is an extraordinary and fascinating responsibility.
For the first time, Writers have competition from machines that could, eventually, say the same thing as us. So we have to show that we are useful and we are at a time when we could give up as people and a big question is does humanity have an expiration date? I believe that literature serves to demonstrate that it has no expiration date and that we can say something unique and unrepeatable that a machine cannot say, and we have the obligation to do our work based on that essential component of humanity that is language. .
