One of those famous phrases that are going around the networks says
“I don't understand that they are developing artificial intelligence for robots, when there are so many people in need.”
Like the old and wise popular sayings, this anonymous author is quite right, although perhaps he has not realized that we Argentines have been developing our own artificial intelligence for a long time. In many cases, those who use it have had great personal success and enjoy a very good life, but they have turned our country into this tremendous general calamity.
Let's look at an illustrative case, almost the paradigm of our artificial intelligence. One of the people who uses it the most is Axel Kicillof, and a well-known but unavoidable example is the tactic he used in 2012 with the expropriation of 51% of YPF, which had been in private hands since 1999, when Menem sold it to the Spanish Repsol.
How would a robot have applied its artificial intelligence in this case? It's easy to figure it out. The State had to pay Repsol about 5,000 million dollars, and since, in addition, there were minority shareholders harmed by the expropriation, they were paid a similar amount and everyone was happy: Peronism, which had sold it, recovered national sovereignty. on oil, and those who returned it recovered what they had invested.
How did Kicillof apply Argentine artificial intelligence? Yes, we know, and we also know the difference against him that he got if we compare the figure with the ten billion that the robot's artificial intelligence would have paid:
*To the 5,000 million, another 4,500 million of interest must be added because it paid Repsol with three bond titles that matured or were restructured in the following years.
*To those 9.5 billion we must add some 300 million in legal fees that were paid over ten years.
*And we must also add the costs of this trial, which estimated that the State owes the minority shareholders some 16,000 million, plus interest, than in the first year of the ruling (annual rate of 5.41% that has been running since September by 2023) will reach 860 million.
That is to say, using Argentine artificial intelligence cost us at least 16,660 million more than if we had used that of a robot.
This Argentine artificial intelligence is curious in that it has not been developed in specialized laboratories, but rather each person develops it for themselves and has become widespread to such an extent that it has become a cultural ideal, which we popularly call “ piolated.”
There is an impressive number of minor piolas, we all know some and they are easy to identify, and there are also organizations of minor piolas that depend on a great piola who recruited them and uses them for their benefit. Obviously, the lesser piolas prey somewhat for their own benefit and are also detectable.
Two of the great piolas of our recent history were Carlos Menem (at least he was nice and his artificial intelligence led him to rub shoulders with San Martín and Belgrano in our pantheon of heroes) and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, but the one who holds the title of Piola Mayor is Néstor Kirchner: in the 2003 elections he came second with 21.65% of the votes, and managed to amass so much power that he created a dynasty with its own name with hereditary right to the position of president.
However, his first place in this category is being questioned because in last year's elections a dangerous competitor has emerged who still has a lot of runway ahead of him to demonstrate his capabilities in the field.
Nothing better than tracing its origins to understand the broad meaning of the word "piola" (it is thought that the good piolada exists and is applauded with enthusiasm, like, for example, La Mano de Dios).
It has at least two origins. One, very appropriate, must be looked for in the slang of people of bad living: thieves, swindlers, criminals, traffickers and corrupt people.
A piola, we all know, is a finite rope, and in the Buenos Aires lunfardo it is a derivation of the word piolín, which in turn is the syllabic inversion of “clean.” Who were the piolas? The criminals who had been ingenious enough not to have a police record, or who had managed to ensure that the justice system could not convict them, and if they had been convicted, they had been avoiding serving their sentence. As we see every day, this class of “clean ones” continues to exist among our very famous, little famous piolas and various chicken thieves.
The other origin has sexual connotations: “la piola”, in Buenos Aires lunfardo, is synonymous with penis. And the piolas have their antithesis in what they themselves call boludos, a word that is also related to the male reproductive organs: the testicles, which the only ones who call them that are doctors.
Both qualifications of people are poetic metaphors and are explained by the sexual functions or actions of these organs: the ball stays outside, while the piola manages to stay inside.
Argentine artificial intelligence is not exclusive to politicians, although on their own merits they have managed to place themselves in a privileged place in that social category.
The last big raid was announced by Clarín, which began with that other “black box” of the policy financed with insurance that the State contracted for the loans granted to retirees during the last stretch of Kirchnerism and has become a ball gigantic artificial intelligence used to make corruption more efficient.
Devised by a junior piola, it is still in force and we don't know how much it will cost us. These things happen when us idiots get lost.
Néstor Barreiro is a journalist and writer.