We do not know if an algorithm will retire us soon, but at least we can debate it with arguments, those that Lucía Velasco has put on the table.
This 39-year-old economist from Madrid with experience in Congress, Moncloa and the European Commission highlights the dangers and advantages of the matter in
Is an algorithm going to replace you?
(Turner).
Ask.
Do algorithms change us?
Have they already done it?
Answer.
They are influencing our lives more than we think and we must take care that they do not condition us.
They are a tool that comes to take work away from us.
Q.
Do you already apply in human resources?
A.
Yes. In the United States, pre-selection processes are often done by algorithmic management, through programs that detect words.
If you know what words to use, you will pass the filter of the algorithm.
There are even systems that do interviews with you, detect your facial movements, your tone, your pronunciation.
P.
Not in Spain?
R.
In this there is no transparency.
Nobody has a record of algorithms and nobody communicates what they are using them for.
Q.
And that can have a good result?
A.
Obviously not for me, but a machine selecting based on parameters is more efficient than a person listening and that is the crux of the matter.
If those who speak with a British accent and a certain sociocultural level pass the filter, you are limiting access to a part of the population.
Q.
Is digitization something we should fear or master?
R.
We have to govern it, understand how it impacts people and detect if there is a source of conflict.
That is where public policy should be.
But well-governed and applied digitization is a source of prosperity.
It takes away from us very heavy tasks that do not contribute and in which the machines are much better.
P.
The feeling is that there are a few who benefit and many who lose.
R.
Spain starts from a broken, dual labor market, with a temporary and precarious nature that increases in a context of technological change and crisis.
This especially affects the young and weighs down the life and emancipation projects of the people.
P.
Do you see danger in this gap between young and old?
R.
I see danger in facing them.
It saddens me that they insist on confronting two population blocks generationally.
There are neither good nor bad here.
I no longer consider myself young, but my entire millennial generation lives with that feeling that you can be fired at any time and that you will never have a mortgage or savings.
You have to inherit or we'll see.
Q.
We are going to divide soon between heirs and people who do not inherit.
Who faces them?
R.
There is a general discourse that older people have many advantages and young people are very bad.
Does that mean that you have to remove the pension from those who have worked all their lives?
You have to let people finish their lives quietly and take care of the rest.
Do not take from one to give to another.
P.
Is the best industrial policy the one that does not exist?
R.
No. It is necessary to reindustrialize Spain in a digital key.
Understand what we want to compete in, distribute these bets territorially and train the population.
We can compete in cybersecurity, electric vehicles, batteries, digital education ...
Q.
Do we have enough digital training?
A.
No. Digital training must be at different levels.
Not everyone has to be a systems architect, data analyst, designer… there are a lot of new professions in the digital economy and we have enormous potential because we have Spanish on our side.
Even the US is on the way to ending up speaking Spanish.
Q.
Do you understand the massive abandonment of work, the Great Resignation?
R.
People are quite fed up and on the edge.
The pandemic and the post-pandemic have removed the fear of jumping into the void.
We have realized that not everything goes.
We cannot live like a hamster on the wheel.
We have to take control of our lives and try to be happy.
Q.
Paraphrasing your book: Is an algorithm going to replace it?
R.
He is going to accompany us.
Substitute is a very big word.
Q.
In your book you compare digitization with the atomic age.
A.
The UN establishes that comparison because it impacts all areas of our life and, if it is not set a limit, it can end up bypassing us.
You have to govern technology and ensure that it responds to the interests of the people.
P.
Digitization is also excluding the elderly.
R.
It worries me a lot.
There always has to be someone who cares for another human being.
Also, we have to make sure everyone is covered.
Good quality internet access has to be a basic commodity.
Like the last resort tariff for electricity, who can not be paid.
There has to be a computer or tablet per person and we have to have a connection to exercise our rights, because our life begins to be there.
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