There is an enormous distance between the “old power” mentality typical of the majority of traditionally thinking politicians and analysts and the perceptions of life of the majority of the population.
The first argue about what interests them: whether Cristina returns or goes to prison, whether Milei saves Argentina or whether he should be shot down. His campaign offers are the same as those from ten years ago, they belong in an old film. The comic outbursts of the MPs at their swearing in are part of a boring city circus.
The big question is: What motivates the voters of Milei, Trump, Mamdani, Castillo, who, according to this logic, win the elections? What is the difference between the two types of shows? James Carville, the consultant who launched a new phase of advising the Clinton campaign in 1993, said in analyzing the last elections in North America: “The Republicans win because they scream; the Democrats need to scream more.”
Authoritarians don’t like that
The practice of professional and critical journalism is a mainstay of democracy. That is why it bothers those who believe that they are the owners of the truth.
Political analysis needs to be more serious; The old consulting firm collapsed. Some candidates used this idea in the last Argentine elections: they severely insulted Milei, interfered in his private life and did not receive the minimum number of votes to enter parliament. It’s not just about screaming. The same thing happened with some serious candidates whose proposals were too gray for voters to see again.
The political crisis is not so much to do with the leaders, but with the people who have changed. To overcome it, we need to examine specific campaigns in multiple countries and draw general conclusions that allow us to understand voters. It is also necessary to study the bibliographies prepared on this topic in the best universities in the world. We have to update ourselves every day.
A few weeks ago, the publishing house of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) published the book “Shared Wisdom Cultural Evolution in the Age of AI,” probably the most important book on AI and communication and their impact on humans in the last decade.
MIT is one of the most important universities in the world. It brings together eighty Nobel Prize winners among its professors and graduates. Their academic excellence based on reality and production has made them one of the pillars of the technological revolution.
Pentland is directing the film at MIT. His research group and entrepreneurship program have produced more than thirty successful companies applying his theories. He is the author of books that have had a major impact on new generation organizations, including Social Physics, Unlocking Collective Intelligence Through the Science of Social Networks, and What Managers Need to Know About Data Exchanges.
The development of communication allowed me to purchase the book as soon as it was published and to concentrate on studying it for weeks. The attitudes of consumers and voters cannot be well understood without studying the latest reports of a science that is evolving at a dizzying pace and breaking all paradigms.
Pentland’s book develops concepts that help understand the gap that separates the political elite from the reality of the people. The text criticizes the “mechanical model,” an approach that treats complex human situations as technical problems, provided they have all the relevant data to reflect on and manage them. Our culture tends to glorify logic and deductive reasoning, but without much contact with reality and continuous monitoring of results, logic and reason often fail. The deductive method is of course still useful for conducting experiments and drawing conclusions from them.
But beyond the experimental data that serves as a guide, we must also use abductive reasoning, which privileges creativity and imagination and allows us to formulate hypotheses or theories that were not previously considered because they contradicted the current paradigms in question.
Today’s societies have become complex and change fluidly in response to new, short-lived situations; They are the complete opposite of the mechanical model to which traditional businessmen, politicians and scholars are accustomed. The book offers ideas about how we can use technologies such as digital media and AI to support, rather than undermine, our human ability to create. It combines Pentland’s experience and training in both the social sciences and cutting-edge technology to provide a holistic view of the challenges and opportunities we face in the age of AI. The author analyzes history in depth and argues that the better we understand the factors that accelerate cultural development, the greater our chances of overcoming the current crisis.
* Professor at GWU. Member of the Argentine Political Club.
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