<![CDATA[Ara Balears in English - artificial intelligence]]> 10 <![CDATA[Where the future of cancer research is decided]]>

I'm packing my suitcase as I write. I'm traveling to San Diego for the first time for the Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research –the AACR–, the world's largest congress for cancer research. Years of working in translational and clinical cancer research and I had never been! Now it's time.The AACR was born on May 7, 1907, among 11 physicians and scientists gathered at the Willard Hotel in Washington D.C. with a mission as simple as it was ambitious: to research and disseminate knowledge about cancer. The first scientific meeting took place a few months later in New York, where nine communications were presented in a small room. Now the congress brings together more than 22,000 participants from 142 countries, with thousands of abstracts and hundreds of presentations covering everything from the most basic biology to the most advanced clinical trials. In just over a century, humanity has gone from having almost no tools to combat cancer to having therapies that, in some cases, completely cure it.This year's scientific program is themed ‘Precision, Association, and Purpose’. Among the most interesting sessions is the inaugural conference by Carl June, a pioneer in CAR-T therapies – which we have already discussed in this space – who will present advances in extending these immunological tools to solid tumors, which has so far been the major pending challenge. The other two topics with the most weight on this occasion are the revolution of artificial intelligence in oncology (it couldn't be missing) and the alarming increase in cancer in young adults, as well as innovations in monitoring residual tumors after treatment.AI in oncology is no longer a promise: algorithms like those of Regina Barzilay, from MIT, learn to detect patterns in images and clinical data with a precision that, in some contexts, can surpass the human eye. The potential to improve early diagnosis and personalize treatments is enormous. At the same time, a plenary session dedicated to why more and more young people are developing cancer raises uncomfortable questions about the environment, diet, and biological factors that we still don't fully understand.The most exciting thing about visiting conferences like this is being able to hear firsthand – and hear from the researchers themselves – the data from clinical trials and understand the biology behind each treatment: how we got here, and where we are going. Cancer science advances when it is shared, when an idea born in a Boston laboratory crosses the room and lands in the mind of a clinician in Tokyo or Barcelona. And San Diego, this week, will be the place where the most sharing happens in the world.

]]> <![CDATA[Sailing without sailors: the sailboat that wants to connect the Balearic Islands with the Peninsula with AI]]>

A sailboat less than three meters long, with no one on board and only a one-kilogram bag of salt as cargo. This is the challenge that will set sail from the Sant Antoni Nautical Club and could mark a before and after in maritime navigation. The project, christened Raig FNB, is the work of about twenty students from the Faculty of Nautical Studies of Barcelona at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia.

]]> <![CDATA[Is there a problem with AI?]]> Artificial intelligence is opening up a horizon of possibilities and challenges for many people, while others see it as a threat. Taking this debate seriously involves, first and foremost, trying to understand what this technology is and how it works in order to know what risks it poses and how we can minimize them. This is clearly seen in one of its most attractive uses: its predictive capacity.

]]> <![CDATA["AI has no memory and does not store our data"]]>

Pep Martorell is a physicist, holds a PhD in Computer Science, and is a partner at the management firm Invivo Partners, where he helps develop artificial intelligence (AI) projects. As an expert in the field, he will participate this Thursday, March 12, in the "Companies with a Human Face" symposium in Palma, to discuss the trends that will shape AI in the next decade.

]]> <![CDATA["Now I do believe that machines can affect my profession."]]>

Just fifteen years ago, translators weren't worried that tools like Google Translate could replace them. "It was so bad there was nothing to fear," recalls Jean-François Cuennet, a professional with over three decades of experience. "Now I do believe that machines can affect my profession," he confesses. The novelty isn't so much the technology itself as the quality of the translations: less visible errors, more fluid texts, and a level of professional rigor that is now essential. As Antoni Oliver, an expert in machine and computer-assisted translation and a professor at the UOC (Open University of Catalonia), points out, "since the 1950s, the idea that machine translation will eventually replace translators has been repeated." Every major technological advance has been accompanied by the same prediction, but now, Oliver warns, there's a difference: "The improvement is such that the error is less perceptible." This makes the expert's human experience indispensable, searching for nuances in a law, in medical research, and, of course, in literary translation.

]]> <![CDATA[In a bikini]]> For the past few weeks, social network X has had new interaction options. There's a form of artificial intelligence that can search for information about what's posted there, telling you if it's factual or not, or helping users provide context or question the veracity of what's being said. But the algorithm also has another application: undressing young women.

]]> <![CDATA[Avoid the avoidable]]> The start of a new year is usually accompanied by numerous analyses and predictions about what will happen. In some cases, guessing is easy; in others, the uncertainty is almost absolute, especially regarding things beyond human control, like an earthquake. On the other hand, what depends on our will is easier to predict, and when something is going wrong, it should be avoidable, at least in theory. But not everyone understands this because there are events or processes that depend on our decisions and yet are perceived as inevitable.

]]> <![CDATA[SFM will use AI to handle passenger queries and complaints]]>

Mallorca Railway Services (SFM) has announced a doubling of the investment allocated to its new passenger information and assistance service. This service, part of a contract valid until 2030, will introduce an artificial intelligence (AI) system to provide automated responses to the most common queries. The contract allocates €1.16 million for the first two years, with the possibility of further increases, compared to the €483,418 budgeted for the 2020-2024 period. According to the Ministry of Mobility, this increase will allow for a shift towards a more comprehensive, accessible model, better adapted to the real needs of rail network users. Once the new framework is in effect, passenger information and assistance will be provided continuously, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, with a faster response to incidents, timetable changes, or complaints. In addition, the service will expand its communication channels: screens and public address systems in stations, information systems on trains, a website, social media (Instagram and X), WhatsApp, and telephone support. The AI system will provide immediate and automated answers to frequently asked questions with an intuitive, multilingual design accessible to people with disabilities. Information coordination with the TIB bus service will also be strengthened to offer consistent and up-to-date information to users combining different modes of transport. The budget increase will allow for extended service hours, enhanced coverage during peak periods, and improved continuous monitoring of facilities, with the aim of reducing service disruptions and increasing the reliability and safety of the network.

]]> <![CDATA[World of change]]> With the new year about to begin, the idea that Trotsky hinted at in his work comes to mind: in times of change, the competition between the dying world and the emerging world is so intense that they become intertwined, and for a time it's difficult to distinguish between them.

]]> <![CDATA[More than half of the residents in the Balearic Islands use AI to make inquiries about their health.]]>

According to the study, 70.2% of residents in the Balearic Islands have admitted to using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to make inquiries about their health. The dangers of digital self-diagnosis, from Línea Directa. The figure for the Archipelago is slightly above the state average (66.4%), which rises to 90% in the case of young people between 16 and 19 years old.

]]> <![CDATA[Prohens presents the Digital Twin: the virtual replica of the Balearic Islands to monitor the territory live]]>

The President of the Balearic Government, Marga Prohens, announced this Friday the awarding of the contract for the Digital Twin of the Balearic Islands, a project that will create a virtual replica of the archipelago for real-time monitoring. With an investment of 4.6 million euros, this tool will allow for predicting scenarios, managing emergencies, and controlling strategic resources such as water and tourist flows.

]]> <![CDATA[Bureaucracy 2.0]]> Virtually any term can have a direct or denotative use – aseptically collected by the dictionary – and an intentional or connotative use, which 'enriches' the word with all kinds of associated values, both positive and negative.

]]> <![CDATA[Christmas is impersonated using AI to commit investment scams]]>

Former tennis player Rafel Nadal warned this Tuesday about the use of his image and voice generated by Artificial Intelligence (AI) on some platforms to carry out misleading advertising or financial investment proposals.

]]> <![CDATA[Innocent Robot]]> In recent weeks, we've had a few news stories about how "normal people" are using artificial intelligence. We already knew that students would use it to do their schoolwork, but we didn't imagine that they would start talking to them like the friends they don't have, or that they would come to feel that the confidences they can't—or don't know how to—make at home, or the secrets and concerns they have no one to confess, could reach everyone's ears. We also know that some people have used AI before committing suicide, like an American teenager, who spoke to a character from Game of Thrones who was now being rolled out by an AI company, and with whom he apparently had more than just conversations in what has been described as a 'romantic relationship'.

]]> <![CDATA[Algorithm prose]]> Just as with a hammer in our hands, we come up with ideas we wouldn't have if we did so with our bare hands, the tool of AI changes our relationship with language and with the creation of texts. In the coming decades, we will see to what extent it affects—influences or conditions—'serious' literature, although popular literature is already, right now, the one suffering most from the effects of this great disruption. Thousands of 'novels' are uploaded to digital bookstores in e-book form, fictions created thanks to AI, which, to a greater or lesser extent, has helped their authors finish their creation. Created with language simulators and thanks to algorithmic invention, these novels are intended to be sold wholesale, and there seems to be a public willing to buy them, in part because they are cheaper and evidently easier to read. Those who are only looking for escapist literature, easy-to-understand and based on stereotypical situations, can find a machine capable of giving them the runaround. If literature was 'the war against the cliché,' as Martin Amis put it, these machines teach you to see any literature as a form of cliché, more or less obvious, but always capable of being reproduced.

]]> <![CDATA[Artificial cunning]]> Although artificial intelligence has only recently burst into our lives, the imprint it's beginning to have on it continues to grow. A little over a year ago, I was trying to interact with it to see how creative it was or how good its ideas were when it came to improving—or more aesthetically shaping—a story, and all it gave me were clichés and, let's say, low-level plot twists. The truth is, it must have some kind of limitation, not only creative but—let's put it this way—moral: it never conceives of one character killing another, for example, or of certain things happening that might undermine a fussy and cowardly cautious value system. As if conceiving "bad ideas" could be socially harmful, even if you specify that it's all fiction. Creatively, the machine is very good at reproducing and falsifying what exists, but not at creating new things. It's like those singers—or comedians—who go on television to imitate others, who can do it well and with a good voice, but who are then incapable of creating their own style, and we're not even talking about composing a song or inventing a good joke. He appropriates the work of painters and illustrators quite successfully—controversy arose when the option of transforming any image into a Miyazaki drawing was offered, for example… To tell the truth, however, there are other things he's starting to do that are worth considering: you can give him a literary text and he'll apparently assess its merits and demerits, although rather than providing useful and lucid literary criticism, he limits himself to pointing out four imponderables or advising you of improvements that don't commit to anything. He's still a terrible writing teacher. It seems to function like that mythical manual that was titled: How to talk about books you haven't read, by Pierre Bayard.

]]> <![CDATA[Rent prices in Palma will drop by 5% this summer, according to the IA.]]>

The artificial intelligence of Fotocasa's Predictive Rental Date Venues Index estimates that rental prices in Palma will fall by 4.8% between July and September 2025, placing the Balearic capital among the 19 Spanish cities where a downward correction in prices is expected, compared to the 26 where an increase is forecast.

]]> <![CDATA["The most powerful and best-functioning scientific theory is not understood by anyone."]]>

Rolf Tarrach Siegel (Valencia, 1948) is a professor of quantum physics. He has served as president of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), rector of the University of Luxembourg, and president of the European University Association.

]]> <![CDATA[Still hope?]]> A few days ago, I alerted Cedro, the governing body that works for authors' rights and the sustainability of written culture, that generative artificial intelligence could be using stolen or pirated works from some 41,000 Spanish literary authors. This information is based on a report published by the Danish Rights Alliance, according to which GAI models developed by companies such as Meta and OpenAI may have used a pirated website, Libgen, as a source of content for their training.

]]>