14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Generation Y, 2 January 2022 — One of the diversions that I have given myself for the new year has been interacting with the ChatGPT developed in 2022 by the OpenAI company, and which is promoted as “specialized in dialogue.” On the first day of 2023, I greeted the “entity,” who responded to me with kindness, restraint and in almost perfect Spanish. I immediately questioned it about urgent issues on the Island and its suggestions for the Cuban economy seemed to me more accurate than everything said by Cuba’s Minister of Economy and Planning Alejandro Gil since he has been in office.
With a ponderous tone, which warns that it does not issue its opinion and avoids predicting future situations, the algorithm behind the chatbot detailed some measures that could help our country get out of its economic quagmire. The resulting list is not very different from what is heard in lines or in conversations between friends when the crisis we are going through and its possible solutions is discussed, but it is quite distant from the official discourse.
If the need for foreign investment, the promotion of agriculture and the obligation to stabilize the currency are points of contact between the responses of this artificial intelligence and what is discussed in the Cuban streets and with the phrases that Cuban leaders constantly repeat, ChatGPT distances itself completely from the latter, because it does not stop at proposals that never come to fruition and rhetorical fireworks. Far from triumphalism and polarization, it warns of the urgency of increasing the educational level of the people and also of promoting political changes “necessary to implement broader economic reforms.”
Without slogans, without calls to sacrifice or partisan slogans, the phrases of the friendly bot also arrive equipped with the warning that any reform of this type also requires “a long-term commitment.” In the field of political openings, it was much more forceful: greater transparency and accountability are needed on the part of the authorities, more citizen participation, respect for freedom of expression and the press, in addition to stopping the violation of human rights human rights on the island o its tracks.
And to finish off the lively exchange, the artificial intelligence said goodbye: “Have a good day and, if you need anything else from me, I’ll be here,” a courtesy far removed from the insults that would spring from the throat of any Cuban official if a citizen would dare to pose such questions. ChatGPT has the good nature, the pragmatism to put reality before ideology and knowledge that is so scarce among the leaders of the Communist Party of this country.
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