How will we cope with the post-war (if it comes) in Gaza and Ukraine? Will we finally regulate cell phone use among under 16s? Is there anything that could stop Trump on his way to the White House? Will we be able to build general artificial intelligence? Will we make sustainable habits a trend? Will we reclaim the city as an affordable place to live? These are some of the questions that will arise this year and will be the subject of debate.
How will we cope with the post-war (if it comes) in Gaza and Ukraine?
Israeli soldiers on January 3rd. JACK GUEZ (AFP/Getty Images)
The cruelty of the war in both Gaza and Ukraine forces us to project a future in which hostilities cease, even if that horizon is not imminent. The Israeli offensive in Gaza has already lasted three months. It has been almost two years since Russia's large-scale invasion of Ukraine. In no case does the zeal with which the world – and especially the West – says it is striving for peace lead to tangible solutions.
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Post-war Ukraine will have something special for the European Union that will distinguish it from any other conflict. Because the Community Club has tied its future to that of Kiev by opening accession negotiations, a process that is being initiated for the first time with an invaded country. This is a gesture of enormous importance, adopted at the last European summit in 2023. Since then, Ukraine legitimately and legally expects to one day come to the table where today sit 27 states united by an irrefutable reality: peace. The EU must commit itself (with money, with reform demands and with a good dose of left hand) to rebuild a devastated country while undertaking an internal transformation that will allow it to absorb a territory larger than one of them , which today make up the European family.
In Gaza, political leadership in shaping Gaza's post-bombing future is much more in the hands of the United States. The Biden administration is already outlining – so far unsuccessfully – what kind of authority it should govern the Palestinian enclave once Israel ends its siege. But the EU must not ignore these efforts. The Community bloc is the main donor of external aid to Palestine in general and Gaza in particular. Their role cannot be limited to rebuilding schools until the next Israeli offensive reduces them to rubble. By Lucia Abellan
Can anything stop Trump on his way to the White House?
Former US President Donald Trump during the trial break in early December. David Dee Delgado (Getty Images)
Ten months before the election, Donald Trump is moving toward the White House like a runaway freight train, with prosecutors, judges and political rivals trying unsuccessfully to apply their emergency brakes.
Currently, none of his opponents appear to be able to stop him in his pursuit of the Republican nomination and a renewed confrontation with Joe Biden. Yes, he is facing four criminal proceedings for a total of 91 crimes; for his attempts to undermine the legitimate 2020 election results, for his role in the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, for his handling of the secret papers he took without permission when he took office at his mansion in Mar -a-Lago resigned , and for a black payment to a porn actress to keep quiet about an extramarital relationship shortly before his 2016 election victory, even if he ended up in prison.
Even a provision of the Constitution (Section Three, Fourteenth Amendment) that prohibits participants in an insurrection from running for public office without first swearing an oath of allegiance has been dusted off. Two states have decided that this ban can be applied to him, although the final say will certainly rest with a Supreme Court with a conservative supermajority and three justices appointed by Trump himself, so it seems unlikely they will disqualify him.
Every time a new emergency brake is activated, it gains sympathizers among those who believe that attempts to stop it are due to political persecution that fears the election will be called. So, ten months before the election, there may only be one answer to the question of what could prevent Trump Express from colliding with the White House: voters. By Iker Seisdedos
Will we regain the city as a living space?
A group of tourists walks in front of anti-tourism graffiti in Barcelona in the summer of 2022. Manuel Medir (Getty Images)
The city is changing. The scenario in which, according to the United Nations, 80% of the world's population will live in 2050 suffers from serious problems related to gentrification, mass tourism, overgrowth or segregation between rich and poor. It risks losing its status as a civic melting pot of coexistence where humanity's great ideas are born, and becoming a product that competes on the global market, trying at all costs to attract tourism and investment flows.
Luxury consumption, spectacular culture, major sporting events, specialist conferences with leisure activities, avant-garde gastronomy, sparkling nightlife, shopping tourism or the most striking Christmas lights are some of the attractions that cities want to offer. A pompous model that thinks more about the outside than the inside, forgets the neighbors and gives priority to production work over reproductive and care work.
The rise in real estate prices, transformed into a form of investment rather than a fundamental right and pressured by speculation and the proliferation of tourist housing, leads to the displacement of the population and the emptying of urban centers, which are transformed into papier-mâché scenarios for practical trade and Tourism. The much-acclaimed theme park.
There is some theoretical consensus on the need for a greener, more sustainable and livable city where inequalities are addressed and the focus is on neighbors. A city of human dimensions modeled on the 15-minute city. The Sustainable Development Goals say: “Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable,” and to achieve this there is the United Nations New Urban Agenda. The first Ibero-American city meeting will take place in 2024. Despite the consensus, there is a lack of political will. By Sergio C. Fanjul
Will we make sustainable habits a trend?
An excavator in front of a mountain of garbage.Bernd Thissen (picture Alliance / Getty Images)
Greta Thunberg wrote on Instagram in 2019: “Change is coming whether you like it or not.” Some luminaries of the outdated world of fossil fuels like Donald Trump laughed at it, but time seems to prove the Swede right and more and more people are changing theirs Habits: Eight out of ten people in Spain separate their household waste; 75% of young people pay attention to sustainability when shopping; The presence of less polluting means of transport such as trains, trams or buses, bicycles and electric cars is increasing, and half of the electricity generated in Spain comes from renewable sources.
Further clues: The circular economy, which seemed something for hippies just a few years ago, is now recommended by The Economist, Cisco and IESE. And analysts like MSCI, who monitor everything, say sustainability is a compelling need in 2024, as well as a business opportunity. “The pace of this transition will be slower than sustainability advocates would like, but the inevitability of this change is gradually reaching market scale,” a GreenBiz report concludes.
“It seems that citizens are becoming increasingly aware of the need to move towards sustainability,” says José Manuel Gutiérrez, CSIC researcher and member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The bad news is that we are moving too slowly. “It's like we're burning in the oven, but as the temperature gradually rises, we don't notice it,” warns Gutiérrez. Oil, coal, natural gas and rampant consumption are leading us to climate collapse, so we must all step up – states, companies, citizens – to change course. As researcher Robert Swan says, the greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it. By Mar Padilla
Will we regulate cell phone use for those under 16?
A group of children using a cell phone in Srinagar (India) in 2023.Faisal Bashir (SOPA Images / LightRocket / Getty Images)
It was said that they were digital natives, that their brains developed differently and that thanks to so-called “multitasking” they could process information via digital media even more efficiently than with analogue paper. The hype surrounding the technological race led hundreds of families to give their children cell phones at an early age without considering the potential harm. Schools also opened their doors to new devices and it seemed like a good option to use a personal smartphone in class to solve homework. Now the competition is reversed: the lack of boundaries of technology, the lack of protection of minors and the abusive consumption of social networks or porn sites have led families, institutions and educational centers to look for a way to put a stop to this use.
The Spanish Ministry of Education has proposed banning cell phone access to classrooms. According to UNESCO, if they leave their cell phone on their desk during class and receive a notification, it may take the student up to 20 minutes to regain their attention. The Spanish Data Protection Agency is developing an efficient age verification tool to show tech companies that this is possible. In a country where seven out of ten children between the ages of 10 and 15 own a mobile phone, the toughest battle is being fought at home: 60% of young people have no rules around the use of digital devices at home. By Ana Torres Menarguez
Will we build artificial general intelligence?
A visitor to the Beyond the Light exhibition in New York last summer. Fatih Aktas (Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
Artificial intelligence (AI) can become an assistant that makes our lives easier. Or in a tool that replaces us and puts us out of work. Or in another bubble.
But companies like OpenAI are not satisfied with that: their goal is to program general artificial intelligence, i.e. a conscious program that thinks like humans. This would be the first step towards superintelligence, which can become the key to solving all problems, even death or, on the contrary, the end of our existence.
It's not easy: we don't know how to define consciousness or intelligence, and there's a lot we don't know about how the brain works. The construction of artificial intelligence is similar to the time when illustrators in the Middle Ages tried to draw animals they had never seen before and their elephants ended up being long-nosed wild boars.
In addition, AI has achieved success in very complex environments but with clear rules, such as chess. However, it has greater difficulties in open and unpredictable environments, such as autonomous driving. A general artificial intelligence must be able to deal with millions of factors that are very difficult to predict and often with rules that we do not always respect.
AI also doesn't perform well when it depends too much on the material fed to it, shows bias, plagiarizes illustrators, or exposes programming dependencies: If ChatGPT doesn't know what to say, it invents, because it's designed to generate content. It is difficult to imagine that a human intelligence will emerge from this, unless it is a botched, limited and biased intelligence that cannot be ruled out and is not far from what we know.
AI can be a useful tool. Or a threat. Or both. But general AI may be an unattainable goal. Probably someone will dare to say that they made it, even if it is a lie. By Jaime Rubio Hancock
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