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The study treats AI as a normal technology, not a superintelligence, and draws on past technological revolutions to project gradual implementation. Image: Freepik We're old enough to know that tech hype is practically a structural feature of modern capitalism. In saturated markets, the relentless pursuit of differentiation is a survival condition in a venture capital arena hungry for disruptive narratives to justify their valuations. In this sense, capitalism doesn't just sell products, but also dreams of the future. However, in the case of artificial intelligence, have market players gone too far? Constant versioning patterns point to an artificial intelligence that will emerge, the media says, like a kind of black hole. From this "singularity," already knocking at our doors, "no sector will escape," say influencers, tech gurus, politicians, and even some academics seeking prominence. "AI will transform EVERYTHING," warns the AI Safety community. "Adapt or die," claim the FOMO hysterics (those panicking out of fear of missing out). Now, a paper and book project, published in April by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University , brings a refreshing breeze to both the fog of a dystopian vision of an apocalyptic scenario without empirical basis and the sweet, cloying incense of the utopian vision. For the authors of this public reflection essay, Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor, respectively a computer science professor and doctoral candidate at Princeton University, AI is "normal technology," just like other "transformative general-purpose technologies, such as electricity and the internet." AI Innovation Is Fast, Adoption Is Slow The study notes that another technological revolution — industrial electrification — took 40 years to be implemented. Image: karlyukav/Freepik According to the study, the major problem with the current AI debate is that both sides place it in the position of an autonomous agent, capable of making decisions on its own and choosing humanity's destiny, attributing "full autonomy" that would leave it beyond human control. When they speak of "normal technology," Narayanan and Kapoor are actually rejecting this technological determinism. Drawing from historical transformations, the researchers emphasize that it's human institutions — not the "will of the technology" — that shape AI's social impacts. The assertion functions simultaneously as a description of the present (how AI really is today), a prediction of the future (a bet on its most likely trajectory), and a prescription for how we should treat it, including guidance on desirable policies and behaviors. "We do not think that viewing AI as humanlike intelligence is currently accurate or useful for understanding its societal impacts," the authors state in the study. Similarly, this anthropomorphic perspective doesn't provide a basis for anticipating future developments or guiding decisions. But perhaps one of the study's most important contributions is distinguishing between AI creation and adoption . While 40% of Americans have tried generative AI, they use it sparingly — just a few hours per month, not per day. In other words, people need to relearn how to work. Drawing an analogy with the Industrial Revolution, the study recalls that electricity took 40 years to truly transform factories, because it wasn't just a matter of plugging into an outlet. Everything had to be redesigned: machine layouts, work processes, and company structures. The Great Lesson of Electricity and AI's Future During the Industrial Revolution, workers began supervising the machines. Image: Courtesy of United Artists The parallel between the arrival of electricity during the Industrial Revolution and the introduction of AI isn't coincidental. True transformation only occurred when entrepreneurs realized they could place individual electric motors on each machine. More than a century later, AI may be going through the same process. Today, many companies and individuals are simply "plugging" AI into existing processes , such as using ChatGPT to write emails or automate specific tasks. But this means making these tasks more expensive. True transformation, like effective use of the technology, will only come with a complete redesign of business models, professions, work routines, and even social structures. Ironically, the belief that AI will create entirely new ways of producing, interacting, and living is what fuels the hype. Just as Industrial Revolution workers began supervising machines, future jobs will tend to focus on configuring, monitoring, and supervising automated systems. Narayanan and Kapoor warn that without human supervision, AI can make frequent errors that could render it commercially unviable. Despite some complacency regarding employment impacts and some excessively categorical predictions about human supremacy, the paper fulfills its purpose: it offers a balanced perspective between two extreme scenarios and suggests policies grounded in historical lessons rather than speculation.

You Can’t Take It With You is an ode to the cinema. At the age of eighty, there is nothing that makes it more naive or outdated. In the residence of Grandpa Vanderhof people live together and do exactly what they want and only what they want: children, grandchildren, sons-in-law or simply people who went there and did not leave. This anarchic family-community, perhaps a harbinger of what, thirty years later, would become the hippies contrasts sharply with the other family plot, the grumpy banker JP Kirby who, investing in the design of an ammunition plant (the movie is prior to World War II), needs to buy a whole neighborhood, but his investment is frustrated precisely by a resident who insists on not selling his property: Vanderhof that regards ​​more the family values ​​than any value in money. But another quarrel makes the fate of families intersect: the romance between J. P.’s son and vice president of the company, Tony, and his secretary Alice, by chance Grandpa's granddaughter who does not want to sell the house. The scene of the rich family's visit to the Sycamores house is worthy of the so-called screwball comedies of the 1930s, though the film lacks a vocation for laughter, drifting to incredibly modern themes like greed for more and more money, impoverishment of the population (would the 2008-09 Recession be a remake of the Great Depression?), and even the fear of the "red peril," the Communist threat that has been attending America's electoral agendas. The ending of the movie is a good example of what was called in the Capra-corn era, movies that extol the best that was (and still is) in human nature: sensitivity, gentleness, humility, and good humor. If we understand that mankind is governed by greed, selfishness and lack of love, it is easy to understand how the solutions of You Can’t Take It With You lead us to moments of pure enlightenment and dream. As Vanderhof persuades the accountant Poppins to leave the bank and move to his house to make masks and toys, he, still wary, says: "the die is cast". #capra #review

Curious is the word "subversive" that has been the adjective most applied to The Last Tango in Paris . Curious because, 46 years ago, when the film was released, subversive sounded like a libertarian in Europe and a destroyer of good manners in Third World countries. Now, on the eve of his fiftieth birthday, and on the director's death week, the film reappears in the media as offensive or disturbing. But what was, at the time of the launch of The Last Tango in Paris, and is on the rise again, is a real inability to deal with sexual themes, an inability that never ceased to exist, but sounded a little tacky in "culturally correct" environment. Paul and Jeanne met in a Paris apartment for rent in 1972. For some of these reasons that seem strange but certainly inhabit the minds of many, the 45-year-old man kisses the 20-year-old girl and initiates a sexual breakthrough that just cannot be considered rape by her agreement. From there they begin a relationship with the condition, imposed by the American, that no names or personal details were revealed. The movie is so restricted in this respect that we never knew the name of Rosa's mother, Paul's wife who had just committed suicide. If social intimacy does not appear, sexual intercourse is wide open, potty-mouth and dirty (in a good sense, we might say). Bertolucci leaves the actors free for improvisations, and what you see are moments of pure lyricism. Impossible to forget the metamorphosis lived by Paul, a violent man in a little boy sobbing next to the body of his dead wife. There is also an emblematic scene that we might classify as prophetic, in which Jeanne voices against her fiancé Tom, who is filming her life, complaints about how she "can not stand being used" and even "feels raped", phrases that would be employed by the actress Maria Schneider later, in the real life. The photograph of Vittorio Storaro and the music of Gato Barbieri frame this work of art. #bertolucci #review

REVIEWS Amarcord (1973) Federico Fellini Now showing Now showing Now showing Now showing What They Didn't Tell You About AI: It's Just "Normal" Technology Juror #2: between guilt and conviction I'm Still Here is contained and devastating There's something sad about Aftersun REVIEWS IN LINE FOR THE MOVIES DREAMS ON SCREEN I think going to the movies is like premeditating a dream or borrowing other people's dreams. READ MORE

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ABOUT ME DREAMS ON SCREEN Going to the movies is like premeditating a dream or borrowing the dreams of others. In this collective experience, an oneiric culture is born: a hypnotic universe of images, emotions, and memories that cross borders and connect viewers who may never meet. A devoted admirer of Roger Ebert, I agree with him when he said: “One of the gifts a movie lover can give another is the title of a wonderful film they have not yet discovered.” Filmes Fodásticos are priceless gifts. I hope you enjoy it. It comes from the heart! GET IN TOUCH TO RECEIVE UPDATES Name Email Subject Leave us a message... Send Obrigado pelo envio!