Klaus Schwab, author of the best-seller "The Fourth Industrial Revolution", recently stated that the era in which we live is characterized by a fusion of technologies that blurs the boundaries between the physical, the digital and the biological. No previous technological revolution was based on so many different advances at the same time and, surely, not at a comparable speed. In this sense, the speed of innovation caused by this multiple transformation has unleashed a heated debate about the future of humanity, which requires us to analyze the limits of our own capacity to understand and use previously unthinkable technological transformations.

So far, advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI from now on) have been limited to very specific tasks. What AI can do most efficiently is process large amounts of information about something very specific, such as developing a game, making a health diagnosis or voice recognition. In productive terms, it is estimated that up to a fifth of the tasks performed by humans at work consist of repetitive computer operations that can be automated.

However, AI cannot think laterally to apply its knowledge to a different environment. Nor can it form an opinion about what it does. Nor, of course, does it have any feelings for it. Now, is this important in systemic terms? When it comes to accumulating capital? Does it favour the worker? Some kind of worker? Surely social scientists, those who want to explain how society works and how to improve the quality of life - even under the use of AI - will have little effect. Simply because the complexity with which they work, although it can never be replaced, will continue to be denigrated. With or without artificial intelligence, the vital being for humanity to understand and improve itself, is not only useless but also dangerous.

On the other hand, recent automation processes through AI have already slowly begun to undermine the middle layers of the labour market, lowering costs as a primary objective. As a complement, economist Daron Acemoglu argues that automation reinforces the monitoring of workers, further reducing wages. And he indicates that the only realistic solution possible in the long term is for technology to no longer be in the hands of the owners of a society based on unbridled competition. "If AI remains under the control of market forces, it will inexorably result in a super-rich oligopoly of data billionaires who will reap the wealth created by robots that displace human labour, leaving massive unemployment in their wake," he states confidently.

Clearly, part of the academy sees a dystopian image of the future where, in particular, when talking about work replaced by "efficient and precise" machines, workers appear as something that can become useless and eventually disposable. This construction of a gloomy image that generates uncertainty and fear, also constitutes a disciplining mechanism that pressures in the sense of naturalizing the loss of wages and, in general, current working conditions as a "lesser evil."

Marxists take this position and explain that the intensification and development of AI systems perpetuates capitalism and maximizes the economic profits of large corporations through the submission of a new type of individual, the user, and under a new form of domination, ‘technocolonialism'. Under this form, a cluster of private companies that are managed by humans, but also by ‘non-human' agents (AI), carry out functions of individual and group control. This may imply that we have a more effective manipulation of democratic political processes, or that personal information runs the risk of being used improperly, which would be of enormous institutional gravity. For all the above, they propose that, given the inevitability of mass unemployment and the demand for universal well-being, the proletariat itself must lead itself towards an ideal of ‘socialization' of AI.

Beyond this extremist vision - or a continuing vision that will intensify, depending on who analyzes it - another sector of the academy and the private sector see a future scenario in the style of a 'mixed system', which has gained ground in the most progressive sectors of the current capitalist logic. In some spheres such as medical diagnosis, a symbiosis between people and machines can be achieved. For example, doctors, based on the data available to them, can use AI to diagnose certain diseases more accurately, as they have the ability to provide not only treatment planning, but also the warmth and confidence that human interaction implies, which often has a determining influence on the quality of health care treatments.

Consequently, as technology continues to alter current processes and ways of working, specific qualifications will have less weight than transferable qualifications, adaptability, critical thinking, compassion and self-awareness. These are the tools that will allow young people to navigate the changing world of work. Therefore, experts agree in pointing out education as the most important measure; jobs where creativity prevails; a necessary investment in an education that mixes art with engineering and mathematics.

Returning to the central point, that machines and men join together in the joint task of improving the lives of all people, is agreed, from most points of view, as being of 'vital importance'. What must be emphasized is never to forget our 'anthropological' position regarding the location of humanity in the cosmos, where the human being does not lose his place as a historical subject. Not only in terms of social actor, but also productive: human work is the active factor in the creation of wealth and the transformation of the world, no matter how 'exquisite' or 'automated' this relationship becomes.

But as Isaac Asimov would say, "The problem is not in technology itself, but in humanity. It is more likely that it is man with evil intentions who provokes a possible war between humans and machines." Therefore, if we achieve a harmonious balance in the production generated by men and AI, the only thing missing would be to work conscientiously and meticulously on the most important thing: ethics, which allows for a more just, equitable and careful system for our planet. That overcoming instance that allows us to improve our quality of life and make it more comfortable.