Under the slogan “AI is on everyone's lips. It's time to understand it,” the congress aims to comprehend and manage the implications of generative artificial intelligence, which has modified aspects such as work, advertising, law, ethics, and communication in just two to three years. The event is organized by the UCM research group “Transparency, Good Governance, and Communication,” in collaboration with other faculties and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation.
The Dean of Information Sciences, Ángel Luis Rubio, highlighted during the opening that generative AI has transformed research, design, learning, and communication at a speed that often prevents us from realizing the consequences. He pointed out that the challenge is not to create more capable machines, but more intelligent, critical, and responsible human beings in their use. "Artificial intelligence can help us obtain better and better answers, but it remains our responsibility to decide which questions truly matter," he stated.
José Luis Risco, Dean of the Faculty of Computer Science, downplayed the tool itself, describing it as a statistical generation of tokens that form phrases. However, he emphasized the need for "human common sense and intelligence" to distinguish what is useful from what is harmful. He called on society not to blindly trust chatbots but to trust themselves, given the technological development driven by large monopolies.
The Councilor for Innovation and Entrepreneurship of the Madrid City Council, Ángel Niño Quesada, agreed on the importance of critical thinking. "The moment you believe that artificial intelligence will always give you the right answer and you trust it, that's when the battle will be lost," he warned, encouraging the use of tools with critical judgment and recalling that the university is a key place to foster this thinking.
In the military sphere, Lieutenant General José Antonio Herrera Llamas, Chief of the Joint Defence Staff, stated that AI will transform the power and prosperity of nations exponentially, considering it the most important military advancement since World War II. He stressed that the advantage lies in the ability to learn and adapt, and that the greatest risk is not using it, as the enemy will. He acknowledged that its implementation in the Armed Forces poses complex challenges and must be a tool "used, trained, and supervised by people."
