AI: The Real Dot on the "i"

This article was translated to English with the assistance of ChatGPT.

Apr 10, 2025

Si quieres leer o compartir este Articulo en Español.

This column exists with the intention of calling things by their name, of putting the dot on the "i" (EL PUNTO a la i). Our contemporary societies are overflowing with half-truths and blatant lies that we all recognize and ignore, without realizing that lies undermine the truths that sustain us. To dig beneath the lies and expose them for what they are, we must learn the magnificent art of asking questions. Interestingly, that art is one essential skill to having a fruitful relationship with AI. And that is a problem, because two conditions are required to ask a good question: one is a willingness to discover the truth, and the other is the ability to recognize one's own ignorance.

“Good questions require the recognition of ignorance, and that is a form of humility”
— Jordan Peterson

"What does it take to live in a system of lies, where everyone lies because otherwise, they collapse?" Perhaps all societies survive within some part of the spectrum of lies we don't want to see or name—but this is a reality we cannot hide.

The Human Drama of the 21st Century

We live overstimulated by advertising, social media, phone notifications, work, and the pressure of responsibilities we cannot drop because they keep a roof over our heads and food on the table. We've become a kind of one-man band, where our identity is shaped by everything we cannot stop doing. On top of that, life has accelerated to unprecedented levels in the societies of the third decade of the 21st century. In the pre-industrial era (18th century), a generational cycle lasted roughly 80 years; but as technology has advanced, change has sped up, and today in 2025, I'm absolutely certain that the generational cycle has collapsed to a single digit.

The existential dilema of human beings lies in the fact that "our ability to focus is the cornerstone of achievement and success"; therefore, all this speed and distraction distances us from living consciously. It functions like a 'conspiracy' that hijacks our attention and stubbornly persists in defining who we are.

How will we know what we want if we can't even focus on what we're doing?

Identity is the most crucial theme of human existence. In animals, identity is defined by instinct; everything in their being is oriented toward what has worked for generations and been encoded into their DNA, developing skills and behaviors for survival and reproduction. In human beings, it is vastly more complex. As a consequence of our free will, we have the freedom to choose how we act and who we are in every situation. Sometimes this leads us to believe we are "masters" of our own reality. However, the influence of advertising, social media, news, and overlapping ongoing crises makes it incredibly difficult to be aware of how we shape our identity. In the end, we move too fast and the spaces we inhabit are like reality shows. The most common pause we take is to snap a selfie and keep running.

We're running without knowing where we're going. Stopping to reflect has become a luxury!

The Truth That Oppresses Us

Our personal evolution is driven by the ongoing resolution and definition of our identity… a process that is never fully complete. For Freud and Jung, human motivations emerge from the subconscious, and then the person rationalizes the reasons why and what for. That's how we hold onto our identity, jumping from one reality show to another — but something within us is unsettled. Additionally, the cracks in that identity are marked by fears and insecurities—not for any mysterious reason, but because our psyche is oriented toward fixing what feels out of place. Stress is a mechanism through which our psyche tells us we're not where we should be, or that the reason we're there is disconnected from what we believe. This is what behavioral psychologists call "negative emotions." They alert us that we are going in the wrong direction.

In this recipe of existential confusion, what do you think would happen if you gave a person the real power to achieve whatever they desired?

Most likely, the motivations that lie beneath their conscious awareness, and that move through the cracks of fear and insecurity, would take hold of that power — and destabilize the person in their work, relationships, family, and above all, in their perception of their own identity.

AI is that power. Today we carry it in our phones. Every company offering its products encourages you to use it to write an email, write a business proposal, draft a post, generate an image — it becomes the promoter of a temptation aimed at your fears and insecurities.

Intelligence is the transversal capacity to apply knowledge across different domains from where it was acquired. Do you feel inadequate to write that text? AI does it for you. Don’t know how to express yourself? It takes care of that too. But what part of you is it obeying?

The field where AI has developed is in language models (LLMs). It is extraordinarily skilled in this. And we need communication as the central foundation of any goal we want to achieve and every collaboration we must build to reach it. The great dilemma is that learning to write is no different from learning to think — in fact, we learn to think through writing and reading. That’s why illiterate people face major limitations in life.

How can you get what you need if you don't know what you want? If the cracks in your soul are the ones gripping AI's power, what you'll get is not what you need — even if it is what you think you want.

The New Phase of "THE DOT on the i"

It’s been about 180 articles since I started this column. I began it, after my divorce, as a process of excavation—digging deep into past experiences and anchors to unearth essential truths that would help me face the painful reality: Who am I if I’m not living within my family? I was searching for a lifeline. It worked, but sometimes we don’t know what we’ll find when we start clumsily searching in the dark, and we follow our intuition through turbulent waters hoping we don’t drown along the way.

Publishing one article every week became the discipline I committed to; it turned into an adventure I never imagined. It began as a way to stay afloat; then, in March 2023, it evolved into a channel to support my Venezuelan brothers and sisters in the despair of living under tyranny with no way out. The shift was both semantic and linguistic—I moved from English to Spanish.

This article is the final one in the series: "AI, Friend or Foe?" and it marks the closing of a chapter in this column. Today, a new direction is born. I feel that the topic of AI still holds much to be explored within the depths of our consciousness if it is truly to be beneficial to individuals, organizations, companies, and society as a whole.

Our mission is: to support those who choose to lead their lives, strengthening their personal skills so they can enhance their work, their talents, and their entire environment through the effective and integrated use of AI.

And our vision is: to build a world rooted in integrity, collaboration, interdependence, with the leadership of Truth for the good of all.