"Behind the power of the great technologies is the power of always", Marta Peirano and Remedios Zafra talk about social networks

"The networks are a symptom, although we don't really know what."

This is how José María Lassalle, writer and ex-politician, began the debate

, held this Wednesday at the Ateneo de Madrid.

Although this idea could have generated confusion and even some uneasiness among the attendees, after a few minutes he clarified that they are the symptom of "a new experience of power."

Both the moderator and the participants in the debate, Marta Peirano, a journalist and researcher, and Remedios Zafra, an essayist and also a researcher, agree that there is enormous power behind the platforms that are part of our daily lives, but they disagree on whether try a new one or else it's just the old power always.

The debate, entitled

is part of the series of conferences

, organized by EL PAÍS and the Ortega-Marañón Foundation.

One of the great technological debates that has intensified in recent years, as technology companies have grown stronger and the consequences of their strategies have been greater, is that of the power held by the large platforms and their possible limits. .

The three participants have considered the nature and origin of the threads that control our digital.

"It gives the feeling that those behind it are the same people as always," Zafra assured, while, for Lassalle, it is "a new elite based on a different story, an entrepreneurial, startup

, from Silicon Valley, and a private power”.

Peirano has defended that it looks like the old power because it is concentrating in the hands of always and behaves like the power of 19th century industrialization”, so that those who control the infrastructure are the same.

Lassalle has ventured to state that “it is a new power because it is changing its bases.

A mutation of capitalism is taking place”, and has referred to a cognitive capitalism, where the true value is generated by machines and not humans (who are excluded).

It is precisely this value that humans cannot provide that makes us fear the future, something that, as Zafra recalled, has occurred in each of the stages of industrial and technological change.

What happens if we are no longer needed?

It is from this approach that once again ChatGPT takes over the conversation: “He is so skilled when it comes to having a conversation with you that you almost like him better than your boyfriend.

He is always attentive to everything you tell him ”, Peirano has resolved.

According to the journalist, “all the information that we thought was private has turned out to be crucial to generate language models that are destined to replace us, they are diminishing our value.

They are machines that, in addition to using your information to sell you products and ideologies, now come to replace you”.

To this idea, Zafra has added: "It is disturbing when you think about who uses the data for purposes that the public does not know about."

However, Peirano has insisted that, although data is the new oil, "we must not forget that data is invented by them and it is they and the market that decide if it is valuable."

Although the debate has focused on the dangers and threats of social networks, the companies that develop them and new technologies, Zafra wanted to insist on one of the positive effects of artificial intelligence and the internet of things: “ For people with low hearing or vision, these technologies put us on a par with the rest of the world.

Artificial intelligence applied to certain objects sometimes turns us into superhumans”.

The remaining five talks on

will take place at 7:00 p.m., from Monday to Thursday and until April 20.

They can be followed live by

through the links corresponding to each session, which can be found on the Fundación Ortega-Marañón website.

Whoever wishes can also attend in person after registering in the forms located on the same page.

The debates are held at the Foundation itself, at the Instituto Cervantes, at the Círculo de Bellas Artes and at the Ateneo de Madrid, which this Tuesday inaugurated its activities to commemorate the bicentennial of the institution.