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“Should human beings remain in control of planet Earth? Or should we be replaced as the dominant species?” These are the questions Senator Bernie Sanders raises in an article published in La Jornada this month. In Mexico, as around the world, the government, the public, and this newspaper are grappling with these questions, among many others, surrounding so-called artificial intelligence (AI).
According to United Nations estimates, 50 percent of all jobs in Latin America could undergo fundamental changes as a result of AI. The resulting job losses could force governments to change labor policies to prevent further social inequality. Others, including some people who work in AI, argue that the technology is already so powerful that it could determine that humanity poses a threat to the planet’s survival and decide to eliminate us all.
“It has to be regulated in some way,” says President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, who believes Congress could open a debate on artificial intelligence. Mexico has been relatively slow to adopt AI, ranking eighth among roughly 20 Latin American countries, behind Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, Colombia, Costa Rica, Argentina, and Peru. At the same time, the Mexican government is promoting a digital transformation that includes using AI to manage medicine supplies in the public health system, as well as developing job-training programs for young people.
Many commentators in La Jornada argue that AI should be used as a complementary tool, not as a replacement for human creativity or human beings themselves. But the question is: How? In his article, Sanders writes that “Humanity must not allow a handful of multibillionaires to recklessly attempt to replace us. We must place an immediate pause on advanced-AI development and ban artificial superintelligence—an artificial mind smarter than any human, capable of operating independently beyond our control—until a new federal body is able to ensure the technology’s safety.”
The danger is not that machines will come to life, but that we will give up thinking, warns Saiph Savage, a professor at Northeastern University in Boston and an engineer trained at Mexico’s National Autonomous University (UNAM). She offers a more optimistic vision of the future. “Just as photography freed the canvas from the need to reproduce reality faithfully, AI will free language from generic text. Writing will no longer be about filling pages, but about committing to bearing witness to what it means to be human.”
It is true that billions of dollars are being poured into the AI value chain, but for now, only certain sectors, such as equipment and infrastructure, are generating revenue. The relentless drive by major technology companies to expand data center construction across every continent has sparked a growing mass resistance movement, writes William I. Robinson. Data centers are being developed rapidly and haphazardly, while tax and environmental regulations are lagging “far behind,” warns Oxfam Mexico.
The rapid spread of AI has also spawned an entire industry devoted to detecting when AI has been used to write or assist in writing an article or book. This, in turn, has led to accusations against prominent writers, including Peruvian author David Silva Rojas, who wrote Donde el agua trabaja and won the Almadía-Arrufat Short Novel Prize, and Mia Ballard, author of the horror novel Shy Girl. We can confirm that this newsletter was written by human beings—but doubt is necessary to defend the truth, so please verify this.
If you can’t beat them, perhaps you should join them? One month after Haitian-Canadian author Thélyson Orélien, winner of the FNAC Novel Prize, was accused of using AI to write C’était ça ou mourir, France launched the first edition of the Pascal Prize for AI-Generated Literature. The award will recognize unpublished works created in collaboration with AI or with the assistance of the technology.
It is worth remembering that Noam Chomsky has argued that “artificial intelligence” is a misnomer because intelligence is a concept that includes the ability to distinguish right from wrong, and AI has no idea what it is doing.
The Quote:
“ChatGPT exhibits something like the banality of evil: plagiarism and apathy and obviation… Given the amorality, faux science and linguistic incompetence of these systems, we can only laugh or cry at their popularity”.
-Noam Chomsky, The False Promise of ChatGPT
In Case You Missed It
◻️ María Izquierdo. As Mexico approaches the Day of the Dead, the altars painted by María Izquierdo are a familiar sight throughout the country. For Mexicans, death is also colored by the orange of cempasúchil marigolds, the brown of pan de muerto, and the bright hues of melcocha candy made from pumpkin. Little clay jugs of pulque and coffee come in every color, as do the colors on all of María Izquierdo’s brushes, which honor her life and work like a student serenade: “Of colors/ of colors is the rainbow we see shining./ And that is why for me what I like are the great loves of many colors,” writes Elena Poniatowska.
◻️ Another Utopía. Mexico City Mayor Clara Brugada inaugurated the tenth Utopía community center and reiterated her commitment to opening 50 of these urban community spaces by 2028. The new Utopía includes a low-cost public laundry, a community dining hall, legal and psychological counseling for women who have experienced violence, emotional wellness spaces, sports facilities, swimming pools, a circus tent that can accommodate around 800 people, a cultural venue with seating for more than 400, and a children’s area. UN-Habitat awarded the project its Scroll of Honour, and Brugada noted that one of the Utopía centers will host the opening of the World Urban Forum in 2028.
◻️ Lula wins, Washington loses. The victory of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva “is a major source of relief for Brazil, as it removes the threat of a return to the authoritarian, corrupt, and sellout politics of Bolsonarismo that had been looming over South America’s largest country. It is also a relief for the continent, whose countries have been sliding into the abyss of far-right, anti-popular governments that are unconditionally aligned with Donald Trump. And it is especially significant for Mexico, which has increasingly found itself alone in Latin America,” La Jornada argues. The newspaper adds that the result means “the region’s two largest economies will continue to be guided by progressive political projects, and that the Monroe Doctrine revived by Trump does not have everything going its way.” The images of Lula’s supporters celebrating his victory say it all.
◻️ Christian Zionism in Chiapas and Latin America. In Chiapas, “the activities of Christian Zionist churches have become increasingly visible. Even as Israel has carried out genocide in Gaza over the past three years, these churches have chosen to support it. This closely mirrors the transformation of Latin America’s political and religious landscape, which has become the only region in the world outside Europe that is Israel-friendly,” reports Hermann Bellinghausen. An increasing number of young Israelis have been participating in so-called “peace missions,” building ties with Christian Zionism, a theological movement that sees support for Israel as a prerequisite for Christ’s return. Christian Zionism has become Tel Aviv’s most effective tool for influencing politics in Latin America and the United States.
◻️ The world condemns the U.S. blockade of Cuba. An overwhelming majority of UN member states voted against the U.S. blockade of Cuba, as they have every year since 1992. The vote in the General Assembly was 130 in favor of a resolution calling for an end to the blockade, 17 against, and 25 abstentions. As a result of pressure from the United States and newly aligned governments, there were 10 more votes against the resolution and 13 more abstentions than in 2025. Carlos Fazio writes that the U.S. president describes Cuba as a failed state, arguing that this amounts to “the executioner blaming the victims and leaving them no choice: surrender or be annihilated. Cuba is not a failed state; it is a country under blockade.”
◻️ Demián Bichir: immigrant solidarity in the face of the Orange Clown. At the Morelia International Film Festival, Bichir presented two projects: Mujer Santuario, a documentary he produced about a mother and activist who took refuge in a church to avoid deportation, and Sin sangre, a film in which he acts and which was directed by Angelina Jolie. In an interview with La Jornada, he said that what immigrants need most today is “a fresh start, an amnesty for those 15 million human beings who continue to contribute enormously to the country’s economy without receiving nearly as much in return.” He also emphasized that, in the defense of immigrants and the resistance against the Orange Clown, “more and more Americans are supporting migrants and those of us who continue to resist.”
◻️ Democracy itself is at stake in the U.S. Never before has a U.S. midterm election carried as much significance as the one taking place on November 3. This election not only puts the Trump administration’s right-wing agenda at risk; it also reflects the growing influence of a progressive movement within the Democratic Party. That movement includes several candidates who identify as democratic socialists or progressives, more than a dozen of whom have a lead in the final stretch of the campaign. Along the Texas border, the fight for votes has a new star: Bobby Pulido.
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Edited by David Brooks and Jim Cason in the United States, Tania Molina Ramírez in Mexico City, of La Jornada, and Elizabeth Coll in Tokyo, under the direction of Carmen Lira Saade and Guillermina Álvarez. More information.