Ara Balears in English - artificial intelligence

AI brings even more tourists to the Balearic Islands: Sant Antoni and Ciutadella, among the recommendations for travelers

ARA Balears — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 12:01:24 +0000

The rise of artificial intelligence as a tool for planning trips is not only changing how vacations are decided, but is also beginning to have a direct effect on which territories receive more tourist pressure. A study on tourist consumption trends points out that Sant Antoni de Portmany, in Ibiza, and Ciutadella in Menorca, are among the destinations recommended by AI agents to travelers, a fact that places the Balearic Islands within a new ecosystem of automated recommendations that may end up conditioning tourist flows even further.

The price of intelligence

Sebastià Franch Expósito — Tue, 19 May 2026 05:48:07 +0000

For years, artificial intelligence has been sold to us as the tool that would make science faster, cheaper, and, above all, more productive. Much of this is true: AI already helps researchers with literature reviews, writing code, and analyzing genomic data. But the picture is more complex than press releases suggest. James Zou, a data biologist at Stanford,tells Nature in that he has spent "well over $100,000" on AI subscriptions in the past year. At his university, this figure is roughly equivalent to the cost of maintaining a postdoctoral researcher.The commitment of major private players to science is becoming increasingly explicit. In October 2025, Anthropic launched Claude for Life Sciences, a version of its model geared towards biomedical research, with connections to platforms like Benchling, PubMed, and 10x Genomics, and collaborations with pharmaceutical companies such as Sanofi, Novo Nordisk, and AstraZeneca. In April 2026, OpenAI responded with GPT-Rosalind (a tribute to Rosalind Franklin, discoverer of the DNA structure). Google DeepMind, for its part, has deployed AI co-scientist in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy, and it is already credited with experimentally validated hypotheses on liver fibrosis and antimicrobial resistance.The results are real. But inStanford HAI's annual report presents two data points that coexist uncomfortably: on the one hand, the number of scientific publications mentioning AI has multiplied by almost thirty between 2010 and 2025; on the other, humans still outperform the best AI agents in complex tasks where reasoning and originality are key. In fact, this increase in productivity declared to be associated with the use of AI is obligatorily linked to a layer of human curation, verification, and correction that rarely appears in headlines. Matteo Niccoli, a geoscientist cited in the same article in Nature, says it bluntly: the bottleneck is not the tool, it is "the thinking and the discussion" around it. One must know when the model drifts, when it hallucinates, when it has lost context. It is useful, yes, but it is not exactly a labor-saving device.And when the work is not saved, the price, on the other hand, does go up. GitHub Copilot announced at the end of April that it was moving from a fixed subscription to pay-as-you-go billing. And a recent commentary in Nature recalls that in 2025, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta spent $380 billion on AI, with packages of up to $250 million for individual researchers. If the science of the future is built on these infrastructures, it also inherits their inequalities.The question is not whether AI is useful for doing science. It is. The question is who can afford it, who reviews its work, and who is left out when the bill comes.

'Homo tecnologicus': owners of the tool or slaves of the algorithm?

Mario M. Devis Lujan — Sat, 16 May 2026 15:01:11 +0000

In mid-March, from the CCOO Teaching Federation in collaboration with the Federation of Pedagogical Renewal Movements and Ecologists in Action, we held the congress Technology and Education: an Ethical-Critical vision with speakers of the highest level. This congress was not for simple academic inertia, nor just another date on the calendar, but the result of a growing concern about the direction that new technologies have taken in the last decade. As we are immersed in a digital revolution, comparable to the industrial revolution of the 19th century. A revolution that is reconfiguring the human being into what we could call an Homo tecnologicus. However, this evolution does not seem to be neutral, and we must ask ourselves the question: Are we the ones who handle the tool, or is it the tool that shapes us?It is fundamental to understand that nothing in the digital world is neutral, both on the internet and in new artificial intelligence, information biases occur. This means that the results we see depend on sources that are not always objective, and today this power is concentrated in the hands of a few private companies, which by chance or causality, are among the richest on the planet: Meta, Google, Apple, Microsoft and Amazon (AWS).Some companies whose business model is not service, but the extraction and storage of data susceptible to be sold; because we often fall into the trap of believing that their services are free. However, in the digital economy, if you don't pay for the product, it's because you are the product. These companies have created authentic 'information farms' through algorithms – these invisible codes that decide what we see and what we don't – where they collect each of our data, movements and tastes to then sell this data to third parties. Databases designed to control our tastes and direct our consumption in a continuous, induced and compulsive manner; taking advantage of the fact that practically everyone has a smartphone available 24 hours a day.The lack of transparency in algorithms is not just a commercial problem; it can pose a democratic risk. This digital surveillance can have real consequences in fields as sensitive as law, economics, the world of work..., areas that must be urgently regulated. We cannot allow computer code to be a source of discrimination; if we do not scrutinize these processes, algorithms can become weapons of manipulation and bias, instead of instruments of progress. We need a legal framework that ensures technological processes are transparent, controllable by the user, and, above all, respectful of ethical principles. The storage of our data must be under the surveillance of representative social institutions, and not exclusively in the hands of private interests.But the impact is not only virtual, it is physical and environmental; technological development does not only stay on our screens; it has a physical and painful footprint on our planet. This excessive development often ignores that basic resources like water and energy are limited. Thousands of square kilometers are needed to store servers connected 24/7 with the necessary cooling for these data centers to function, with the resulting CO₂ emissions and the necessary use of nuclear energy for continuous operation.To manufacture batteries and devices themselves, materials such as coltan, cobalt, nickel, lithium, and other 'rare earths' are exploited; materials that are mostly extracted in mines where child labor is encouraged and toxic waste dumps are generated that severely pollute the environment; a bill that is mainly being paid by underdeveloped countries. And it can only be a true evolution if it is sustainable and respectful of human rights throughout its production chain. It is essential to responsibly manage waste, resource consumption, and the water footprint. Digital ethics must necessarily be ecological ethics.One of the most critical points of this digital revolution is how technology affects the most vulnerable, and this vulnerability is most evident in minors and especially in childhood. Digital platforms use seduction to trap us, the design of the infinite scroll –this screen that never ends and that loads content non-stop– is designed to capture our attention and generate what we now know as digital addiction. This compulsive behavior makes us lose track of time, generates immediate reward stimuli, and abusive consumption of these. The symptoms are already contrasted: anxiety when not connected, social isolation, neglect of responsibilities, lack of sleep, behavioral disorders, learning problems, lack of concentration... more than enough evidence to address this problem immediately.As educators, we view with concern how these effects, derived from screen saturation, manifest in classrooms; global reports such as PISA or GEM confirm a widespread decline in student competencies since the massive implementation of technology in educational centers. By moving so abruptly from analog to digital, essential construction processes and neural relationships for developing cognitive abilities in childhood have been lost. In many parts of the world, the return to paper, pencil, and textbooks is already being considered. And it seems we have made a conceptual error: we have confused educating in digital competence with educating through digital competence.It is not about criminalizing technology, but about demanding that it be at the service of people, social justice, and cultural plurality. It is urgent to legislate, both nationally and internationally, so that our data is protected and processes are transparent. We need to reclaim the role of technology to build a better world, and not as a tool that conditions our freedom and future.It is imperative that we stop being passive spectators of this transformation, we need brave legislation and strict regulation that ensures that technology is a driver of social justice, plurality and sustainability, and not a tool for manipulation. Technology must be a bridge to knowledge and equality; it is time for the Homo tecnologicus to regain sovereignty over their data, to demand a digital environment that protects children and respects the planet's limits. Only then will we achieve machines working for us, being owners of the tool and not slaves to its algorithms.

Governance and social networks

Joan Mesquida — Fri, 08 May 2026 17:32:07 +0000

In the book Four Internets, researchers from the University of Southampton Kieron O’Hara and Wendy Hall analyze the different models we can find today regarding Internet governance. One of the most curious aspects they explain is the use of social networks in China. The first thing that surprises is that there is no direct supervision by the Chinese government on what is published, but rather the users themselves self-regulate. In order to avoid problems, users censor what directly attacks the regime, but also behaviors such as the dissemination of rumors or fake news. On the other hand, it is common to find complaints against the malfunction of public services or against corrupt behavior by local authorities.This internal criticism is not only tolerated, but it is a vital source of information for the Chinese regime. It is well known that one of the main problems of any authoritarian state is the lack of incentives for authorities to highlight and correct problems and dysfunctions. If a local organization has a corrupt leader, the supervisor of the area knows that if they report it, they will have to give multiple explanations that could jeopardize their own position. In the end, it is always much simpler to hide it and transmit an immaculate image of what is happening to the superior authorities, even if it is unreal. But this, repeated over and over again, ends up being the worst nightmare of any ruler: having to make decisions with a false image of the country. The Beijing regime has long known that tolerating criticism in these daily aspects and at the local level is the best antidote to this.This tolerance does not equate to recognizing a full exercise of freedom of expression in the country, but it shows us how social networks have a public function that works both for the regime and for the people. In our environment, this function is not so common, for other reasons, because complaints can go through official channels without many problems. What is indeed, unfortunately, common on our networks, in addition to photos of the neighbor's trip or the video of someone charging their phone with a potato, are rumors, bad news, and a lot of aggressiveness. Contents that are what generate the most profit for the owning companies because, unlike in China, social networks here do not have a public function. They are simply a big business.Both models have some positive aspects, but their orientation is perverse: to maintain the authoritarian regime, in the Chinese case, and to maintain a consumerist and hyper-accelerated society in ours. In the literature on this subject, the European Union has long been discussed as a third model that seeks to prioritize the general interest over the business interest, as it has done, for example, with the protection of personal data, which leads to constant confrontations with large North American tech companies. Despite resistance, the European protective model is gradually consolidating, it is imitated by other countries, and it would be good if it were strengthened in other matters, such as the use of AI. Taking advantage of the fact that May 9th is Europe Day, and seeing how the internal enemies of the EU are becoming increasingly vocal, it is not in vain to remember the values and strengths of our continent and, even, to show a certain pride in it.

Where the future of cancer research is decided

Sebastià Franch Expósito — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 05:47:16 +0000

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.

Sailing without sailors: the sailboat that wants to connect the Balearic Islands with the Peninsula with AI

ARA Balears — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 08:34:12 +0000

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.

Is there a problem with AI?

Joan Mesquida — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 18:30:17 +0000

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.

"AI has no memory and does not store our data"

Marcos Torío — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 20:11:30 +0000

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.

"Now I do believe that machines can affect my profession."

Marcos Torío — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 20:12:59 +0000

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.

In a bikini

Melcior Comes — Wed, 21 Jan 2026 06:45:28 +0000

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.

Avoid the avoidable

Joan Mesquida — Fri, 16 Jan 2026 18:30:38 +0000

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.

SFM will use AI to handle passenger queries and complaints

ARA Balears — Fri, 02 Jan 2026 12:03:41 +0000

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.

World of change

Sebastià Franch Expósito — Tue, 30 Dec 2025 18:16:06 +0000

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.

More than half of the residents in the Balearic Islands use AI to make inquiries about their health.

ARA Balears — Wed, 26 Nov 2025 12:39:27 +0000

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.

Prohens presents the Digital Twin: the virtual replica of the Balearic Islands to monitor the territory live

ARA Balears — Sat, 15 Nov 2025 15:57:08 +0000

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.

Bureaucracy 2.0

Nanda Ramon — Mon, 29 Sep 2025 17:31:11 +0000

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.

Christmas is impersonated using AI to commit investment scams

ARA Balears — Tue, 23 Sep 2025 14:06:24 +0000

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.

Innocent Robot

Melcior Comes — Fri, 19 Sep 2025 17:16:01 +0000

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'.

Algorithm prose

Melcior Comes — Sun, 31 Aug 2025 17:15:38 +0000

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.

Artificial cunning

Melcior Comes — Sun, 03 Aug 2025 17:16:13 +0000

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.