To the extent that his professional career has taken him along other paths, the gaze that Genís Roca (Girona, 59 years old) has maintained in his studies of History and Archeology allows him to see the current situation with great perspective. It is thanks to this look that Potser was, and is, a fundamental piece in the digital panorama of business and culture in Catalonia. Co-founder of the consultancy firm Roca-Salvatella, from which he will draw for four years, he has been councilor or member of the governing bodies of the RACC, the Enciclopèdia Group, the Mobile World Capital foundation, the Picasso Museum, the Government and the City of Barcelona, among others. He is also president of Fundació Accent Obert, the new name of Fundació.cat. Ara publishes a book, The inevitable revolution (Ara Llibres), a brief presentation of the great digital change in which we are immersed.
Ask. Now that we’re in the introductory phase: what is artificial intelligence?
Answer. It is a new evolutionary phase of continuous software incorporation to all There are times that we put in computer programs for a lot of fun. Artificial intelligence is just a higher state: they are algorithms, but combinations with historical information allow results to be deduced. The most interesting thing is that the first impact is that this new generation of software will have to completely replace the previous one.
Q: The transition is long but it is very long. Will humans be able to master this technology?
A: I tant, com vam fer amb el foc, com farem amb totes. I don’t rule out that this technology is targeting idiots at all, but it has always been there. Socrates was against writing because it damaged memory. There was something wrong with Potser, but the writing will have many possibilities. I thought I was involved in a similar debate.
Q: Which companies do you impact?
A: The strongest impact is that there are constant streams of real-time data. The supermarket, depending on how many bananas are sold, the weather forecast, whether coastal cities will be festive or not, has a series of data that allows it to decide how many bananas to sell to others. These decisions give meaning to the software new generation, are not possible.
Q: What are the problems that concern you?
A: Industrial society will organize work in turn and will try to improve working conditions. The digital society knows no limits to the conditions of information. Hi ha feina per fer, I need people with the first trade unionists, who will cut the face pels drets of the traball. For me Julian Assange is one of those people.
Q: The book analyzes the fears that AI has at the forefront: of losing control, of losing control to large multinationals… Is there greater certainty than the Internet in general, which is perhaps more democratic and open?
A: Yes, but in case of staying in l’enyorança I prefer to participate in the small rain of com vull that will follow the future. I think the sewing could be better, or better, but I can participate in its design.
Q: What did the European Union say in this project?
A: Europe brings with it masses of times accustomed to imposing their own cultural imprint on the rest, and so ins I have fans, no I have portem well. I believed that Europe would not arrive soon enough to participate in the design of the world. Because we don’t have the technology, nor the economic and energy capacity, nor the geopolitics. No hi temps: more than Europe, what we need to build in the next 25 or 30 years is the West. A cultural blog that understands digital society in a nutshell.
Q: The proposal recalls the geopolitical schemes of 1984d’Orwell.
A: At a certain point, Europe became a supragenerational project to be built for the future. But it was the dream of our warnings, because the dream must go further, because Europe doesn’t play.
Q: How has Catalonia positioned itself in the digital society?
A: Ara hi has a canvi in Marxa. On Google’s internet, when there is a fence, 70% of the results are in English. The probability that it will produce a result in Catalan is minimal, and therefore I need positive discrimination, more results in Catalan, which will be due to the Catalan cultural context. However, both ChatGPT and the Internet had a problem. So I can answer in Catalan, but I don’t know if the way the answer was prepared falls within the Catalan cultural context. We have a very developed proposal for això: that the AI engine, if desired, can be limited to a subset of information from Catalan culture to respond based on the Catalan context. This requires massive criticism of the content in the catalog and of the users. Perfect, I’m done.
Q: Ah ho tenim?
A: We are an important culture in the development of digital society. In the last 20 years, the .cat domain will be launched, which will set a precedent that will benefit all cultures around the world. After the English Wikipedia, the second to be born will be the Catalan Viquipèdia. Little joke. In every era of the Internet, Catalans have played a relevant role. This is very important because it is clear that we are a minority language. Passo d’anar traumatitzat per la vida. Meva is one of the five most powerful languages on the Internet.
Q: More on the internet, how do you see the Catalan cultural panorama?
A: Mute discomfort. It is a characteristic of Europe: culture is one of the luxury goods that are donated and subsidized. But subsidized culture goes beyond the idea of culture. Culture is annoying, it questions power, it takes it out on everyone, it is rebellious. A subjugated culture, which cannot be viable without being subsidized, is kind to power, it is lleure. Kafka said that if you write a novel it must be a war work.
Q: Couldn’t digital culture be a revolution?
A: Hi, it has more problems than ever, but the digital world is destroying many business models and is precarious for many women. Think for example about music and how it has influenced you.streaming. It is false that digital was an alternative, because the artist is free and independent. It’s very easy to publish, but very difficult to be relevant. Something else is missing. We confirm that in Catalonia we have around 2,000 contingut creators, but they have to pose in xarxa, which is the best one.
Q: Al libre talks about digital revolution, not transformation. Is conflict inevitable?
A: Here there are obvious conflicts: at the mercy of the right to information, of the redistribution of wealth, of privacy… And here we talk about digital transformation, as if we were not doing it to cause evil, but to be able to do something about it. When we need to organize ourselves, we need to have a strategy.
