We are not machines | profile

Political communication is in a deadly crisis. It is common for electoral processes to produce unforeseen results and for governments attempting to implement the reforms necessary to address the fourth industrial revolution to face conservative resistance from sectors that identify as revolutionaries.

There are sectors of the economy that have managed to successfully adapt to the new circumstances. Companies that have aligned their actions and communication with current times, such as Airbnb, Uber, Amazon, Apple, are now among the largest in the world. In contrast, large companies like Kodak that failed to adapt to the new reality disappeared.

The most dramatic thing about this situation is that people have changed; Most political leaders fail to understand that the messages and policies that were useful ten years ago have lost their usefulness. The communication of governments, parties and candidates uses patterns that aim to mobilize a type of person that no longer exists. Unfortunately, leaders remain trapped in past disputes that take up their time, debating the legal status of figures like Cristina or arguing about who does the stupidest things on TikTok or is the wildest on their digital platforms.

A more sophisticated analysis is required. The institutions of Western society were formed between the 17th and 19th centuries with the emergence of the mechanical model in industry, medicine and the natural sciences. The first industrial revolution shone with its ability to produce goods and services previously unimaginable and to improve the living conditions of the population.

Leaders and thinkers assumed that society could be managed as a mechanical device controlled by logic and reason and with rules to create better societies. Using factories as an example, hierarchical institutions were built with regulations that limited individual discretion under the premise that people were interchangeable, like the gears of a machine. It was believed that democracy was the ideal system because voters would rationally select the best leaders.

However, with the advent of the fourth industrial revolution, this mechanical approach became obsolete. It is overly rigid, insensitive, and disconnected from new communities, limiting the creativity needed to meet the challenges of a world that is unpredictable.

Humans are primates characterized by their ability to make tools. The first human species, Homo habilis and Homo rudolfensis, emerged three million years ago and are defined as humans by their ability to make tools by placing a soft stone on top of a harder one and sharpening it by striking it with a third, equally durable piece.

The technological development required to move from these improved stones to computers and artificial intelligence took millions of years. Changes were slow at first, but have accelerated exponentially in recent decades. In fact, science and technology have made greater advances from 2007 to today than in the previous three million years.

Along this evolutionary path, various human species appeared in Africa and Eurasia. Our species, Homo sapiens, originated in various parts of Africa around 300,000 years ago. About 70,000 years ago we left this continent and mixed with other people who settled in different regions. In Europe, Neanderthals – with light skin and red hair – contributed their genetics to the identity of northern peoples. In Asia, the Darker-skinned Denisovans left their mark on the Melanesians and Mongols. Some of them came to America and populated it, since there were neither hominids nor prehistoric people on our continent.

A fundamental milestone in this development was the domestication of fire by Homo heidelbergensis, Neanderthals and Sapiens. In addition to the benefits of cooking food, fire allowed sapiens to communicate and create the symbolic universe.

Each of these technological advances not only increased our quality of life, but also led us to adopt new behaviors, changed us physically, and made us different. This is how we went from fighting over a specific game to today’s competition for control of intangible artificial intelligence.

It is arrogant to assume that we have all the relevant data to analyze policy based on the mechanical model mentality. Although our culture glorifies logic and deductive reasoning, they are not everything. They tend to fail when they lack solid grounding in the real world, when they are not quantified, and when there is no constant monitoring of results. When the political message ultimately consists of elements that do not respond to a strategy, failure is most likely.

* Professor at GWU. Member of the Argentine Political Club.