changing

A sedentary lifestyle is not only destroying your body, it is also changing your personality

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Sitting is a problem. Better said: sitting is a lot of problems. Sedentary lifestyle is the fourth risk factor for death globally and is behind one in four cancers of the breast, uterus or colon. And the thing doesn’t end there. Its impact is undeniable: it doubles the risk of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes, slows down glucose metabolism, and reduces fat synthesis. In addition, with one hand it hinders the burning of calories; while the other causes loss of muscle mass, bone weakness and bone demineralization. But we have known that for a long time. What is not usually said is that, in addition, sitting changes our personality. The personality? Indeed. In recent years, researchers have been building a growing body of evidence associating physically inactive lifestyles with small (but measurable) declines in several personality traits over decades. Since 2018, We know that baseline physical inactivity predicts declines in four of the big five personality traits: responsibility, openness, extraversion and agreeableness. It’s true that the effects are small (and the evidence is observational), but they are surprisingly consistent. Does exercising protect our personality? It is not clear. As I said, the studies are observational: that means that we know that both variables go hand in hand, but not that one ‘acts’ as a protector of the other. However, we don’t always need clear causality to see where the problem is. And the problem sits at the very center of Western society. Spain is a good example: between 27.4% and 36.4% of Spaniards aged 16 and over declared themselves sedentary in their free time according to the INE. And they are right: if the WHO recommendation speaks of between 150 and 300 minutes of physical activity per week, almost half of Spaniards do not reach it. Sedentary lifestyle is, without a doubt, a silent epidemic that is straining our health system and, if these researchers are right, is changing who we are. Because, although there is debate about all thisthe idea that an active lifestyle is a protective factor for personality stability throughout life is gaining strength among experts. It is true that we do not know the specific mechanisms, but the psychological plausibility of the matter is beyond any doubt. It’s time to get going. Image | Kate Sade In Xataka | Cereals yes, but wrapped in black cardboard: the packaging business aimed exclusively at men

Every time the Vatican has warned of the danger of a technology, that technology has ended up changing the world. It’s up to the AI

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Let’s do a little memory. The 15th century was ending and The Christian Church found the printing press wonderful.almost providential. The adoption of that invention by ecclesiastical institutions was enthusiastic because it allowed them to amplify their mission. It didn’t take long for the discourse to change noticeably. in the bull Inter multiplies In 1487, Pope Innocent VIII praised it but warned of its risks: the same thing that served to spread the word of God, could serve to spread heresies and false ideas. It was then that censorship was introduced according to which no book should be printed without the approval of the ecclesiastical authorities. That laid the foundations for the future Index librorum prohibitorum which established a list of prohibited works for all of Christendom. That didn’t go too well. Martin Luther precisely took advantage of that divine invention to distribute your propaganda during the Protestant Reformation, and if this movement ended up being successful it was undoubtedly thanks to the printing press. It is not in vain that Luther is considered the first author of best-sellers of history. The encyclicals in the face of technological advances Let’s move forward. In 1891 Pope Leo XIII published his encyclical Rerum Novarumpossibly the most famous social encyclical in history. In it the pontiff focused on the rights of workers as response to the disturbing Industrial Revolution. He denounced the concentration of wealth and new technologies “in the hands of a few,” and warned that this was turning workers into slaves. Let’s keep moving forward. 90 years ago, Pius XI launched his act Vigilanti Cura (1936), dedicated exclusively to cinema. It recognized the technological progress that cinematography represented, but warned that if it was not strictly regulated, it would become the greatest instrument of moral corruption and mass manipulation in history. That message would be accompanied by the encyclical Miranda Prorsus (1957), by Pius XII, which extended that warning to both radio and televisionwhich had as much or more capacity than cinema to be beneficial but also toxic to humanity. There have been other social encyclicals related to technology: Pacem in Terris (1963) by John XXIII spoke of the atomic danger, while Evangelium Vitae (1995) by John Paul II was a wake-up call against eugenic biomedical techniques and embryo manipulation. The curious thing is that most of these encyclicals were published many years after certain technological advances had occurred. That would make one think that there are one or several encyclicals dedicated to the internet, mobile phones or social networks. There are not, although these topics have been mentioned by the last Popes in other messages. Arrives Magnificent Humanitas Therefore it is surprising that Pope Leo XIV has dedicated an entire encyclical to artificial intelligence. He has done it just three years after ChatGPT was launched, and he has also done it with a unique title: Magnificent Humanitas (2026). A fact: Robert Fracis Prevost, Pope Leo XIV, graduated in mathematics in 1977 from Villanova University in Philadelphia. This encyclical follows a very clear historical line of argument: on many occasions in which a disruptive technology appears, the Vatican adopts the role of “ethical brake” and tries to warn of something relevant: technical and technological advances must be subordinated to human beings. In Magnificent Humanitas the discourse is known and reasonable: warning that large AI companies They will end up imposing their moral vision on the entire planet. It is not just that hyperscalers (Amazon, Microsoft, Google) or companies like OpenAI or Anthropic dominate this market in the commercial section: it is that this dominance also translates into a form of influence that is even more worrying than cinema or television were (and are). The encyclical also warns of how AI is causing a “cognitive displacement” in which human beings end up preferring that algorithms think for them instead of making a reflective effort. The text is very long (40,000 words, which is approximately equivalent to a novel of about 150 pages) and ambitious, and covers many more areas, but the univocal message is that of a warning about the dangers of this technology. If one looks at this entire catalog of papal warnings from a historical perspective, it is impossible not to see the paradox. Most of the technologies that the Vatican once denounced as existential threats ended up, in the end, making the world a better, more prosperous and more connected place. The printing press democratized culture, the Industrial Revolution raised the global standard of living, cinema and television enriched the collective imagination, and biotechnology saves lives. History shows us that these bad omens of the Popes never came to pass completely, but we must be careful. The value of these encyclicals is not in their ability to predict the future, but in their function as ethical counterweights. It’s okay and necessary that someone warns about the risks, because those dangers were and still are real. Image | The Holy See In Xataka | Spain has been a Catholic country for more than 1,500 years. “The Change” now wants to turn it into an evangelical one

We Spaniards are changing fishmongers for fish on a platter. And it is costing us very expensive

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When your grandparents wanted to buy fish, they might have found more or less variety, but they had it easy: they went to the market or the fishmonger, asked questions, chose, paid and returned home with the purchase. Today things are somewhat more complicated. Or not. with consumption in low hours and food spending increasingly concentrated In supermarkets (to the detriment of neighborhood stores), it is increasingly common that instead of buying salmon, sea bream or any other fish on a counter, we take it from a refrigerator, already scaled, filleted and served on trays. The question is… Does that make it more expensive for us? What has happened? that the OCU just responded to a question that you may have asked yourself more than once if you usually consume packaged fish from the supermarket: Are you paying a premium? Would that filleted fish be cheaper if you bought it in the fishmonger’s section instead of on a tray? It is an interesting question if we take into account that Mercadona, the chain with higher market share of the country and agglutinator of more than 30% of the food distribution business in some parts of Spain, has decided retire their fish counters and bet on the sale of this product already prepared, packaged and arranged on trays. What has the OCU found out? In general terms, it is (indeed) likely that you are spending more money by taking home already packaged merchandise instead of buying it at the supermarket fishmonger. After carrying out a study in a dozen chains throughout April, the OCU concluded that “fresh fish sold packaged is up to 30% more expensive than that purchased at the fishmonger if they are small varieties, already cleaned and filleted.” That last nuance is important because the organization’s technicians verified that the percentage goes up or down depending on the type of product we are talking about. In some cases the extra cost of packaged fish compared to that sold over the counter shoots up to 45%. In others it narrows so much that it is almost imperceptible. “The answer is not as simple as it seems: in some cases, especially for smaller or portioned fish, we do pay a lot more to buy clean fish on a tray, but in others, for larger ones, there is almost no difference,” details the OCU. Can it go further? Yes. To begin, it is useful to know how your study was carried out. As recognizes the OCU itselfthe analysis is not as simple as writing down the cost (euros per kilo) of each product and then comparing. There are chains that only sell certain varieties of fish through a single channel (counter or trays). As if that didn’t complicate things enough, there is another key handicap: trays of filleted and packaged fish usually offer 100% edible product; That is, without bones, heads or any other disposable part, something that can happen with whole pieces from the fish market. And how did they calculate it? How can we compare the prices of trays of already cleaned fish with those we see in fishmongers, which usually show the cost €/kg of whole pieces? To solve it, the OCU was based on estimates from the Spanish Nutrition Foundation that they conclude that the edible part of the fish usually represents more or less between 55 and 67%, depending on whether we are talking, for example, about sea bream or sea bass. As for the chains, the OCU set in Ahorramás, Alcampo, Aldi, BM, Carrefour, Dia, Hipercor, La Despensa, Lidl and Mercadona. If we talk about gender, the analysis focused on four species frequently consumed in homes: sea bream, sea bass, hake and salmon. For referencethroughout the year between October 2024 and November 2025, we Spaniards consume 0.56 kg of sea bream, 0.55 of sea bass, 1.44 of salmon and 1.54 of hake. Do those details matter? Yes. Because thanks to them we can better understand how the gap between the price of fish on the counter and on a tray widens or narrows depending on the product we are talking about. The clearest cases are represented sea ​​bream and sea bass. In the first case (gilthead) the OCU calculates that merchandise sold packaged is on average 27% more expensive. And at the counter we also pay for the amount of merchandise that is wasted after weighing the complete piece. In some supermarkets that percentage even shot up to 47%. The case of the sea bass is even more egregious. The surcharge detected in filleted products served on trays is 45%. Is it always like this? Things change considerably when we talk about hake and salome. If we want some slices or loins, there are no big differences depending on whether we ask the fishmonger at the counter or go to the supermarket refrigerator to buy them in trays. A hake cut and prepared on the counter came out in April for €17-25/kgwhile on a tray it was charged at €18-25/kg. The salmon slices or loins also cost practically the same (€20-23/kg) both in the fishmonger and in boats. What is the conclusion? “The conclusion is clear: in small fish, the greater the handling, the more expensive the fish on a tray becomes compared to selling on the counter. In preparations with less handling, the premium is much lower, if not residual,” ditch the organization. In short: there is a premium, although it is not always nor is it equally forceful in all cases. It depends on the type of fish and also the level of preparation we want. “In small and filleted fish, convenience does pay.” Better one or the other? The OCU admits that the trays have “pros and cons” for both consumers and supermarkets. Among the first, the most obvious is speed and comfort. One of its biggest drawbacks is the loss of the figure of the fishmonger, crucial for advising the client, and the generation of waste. The organization also warns … Read more

We are misdiagnosing PCOS. Therefore, these scientists have proposed changing its name

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Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) affects approximately 13% of women. women of childbearing age. However, it is estimated that there are approximately 70% of cases undiagnosed. Many patients are not aware of having this syndrome until they they try to have children and they see that it costs them a lot of work. Others never receive a diagnosis. For whatever reason, this is quite common in diseases that only affect women. All you have to do is see the endometriosis figures. Now, an international team of scientists has been exploring one of the reasons they believe there may be behind this underdiagnosis and have even proposed a curious solution: changing the name of the disease. Polyendrocrine metabolic syndrome of the ovary (SOM). These scientists they have spoken with experts and have surveyed more than 14,000 patients and healthcare professionals from around the world with different specialties. This has led them to realize that there is great discomfort with the name of the condition revolving around polycystic ovaries. It is true that this is a diagnostic criterion, but not all people with this syndrome develop this condition. Therefore, if the name revolves solely around that, there may be fewer diagnoses or even stigma towards those who insist that something is wrong with them, without having been able to put a name to their condition. After observing this data, they have chosen to propose a new name: ovarian polyendocrine metabolic syndrome. This refers to the factors that are common in all patients. An affectation of your hormones, which has effects on the ovaries and can also affect metabolism. It all starts with androgens. Generally, PCOS (or SOM, whatever we want to call it), is characterized due to excessive synthesis of androgens in the ovaries. These are what are colloquially known as male hormones, although they are also produced in the ovaries. However, its levels in the female body are usually much lower. When they rise, they affect the ability of the ovaries to ovulate correctly and, in addition, they affect the levels of other hormones linked to the menstrual cycle, such as LH and FSH. FSH usually tends to decrease, while LH increases. This hormone has many functions, among which is promote the synthesis of more androgens. Therefore, even more male hormones continue to be generated. It’s a vicious circle. The symptoms. People with this syndrome usually have symptoms such as absent or altered menstrual cycle, anovulation, facial hair growth, acne, hair loss or ovarian cysts. We should not confuse polycystic ovary syndrome with polycystic ovaries. The latter is a phenomenon that can be seen on ultrasound and does not necessarily mean the presence of the syndrome. For this reason it has been proposed to change the name. Continuing with the symptoms, PCOS is also usually accompanied by insulin resistance. That is the reason why it is also considered a metabolic syndrome. Other conditions, such as type 2 diabetes or obesity, can sometimes occur as a result. 2 of 3. PCOS is diagnosed when 2 of 3 diagnostic criteria are met. These are excess androgens, irregular or absent menstrual periods and polycystic ovaries. Cysts occur because, as ovulation cannot occur properly, the follicles in which the eggs mature remain. stuck in their immature state and accumulate. The egg is not released and the cyst occurs. However, is calculated that 30% of people with PCOS do not have these cysts. In fact, the percentage could be even higher. What happens is that, perhaps because of that inappropriate name, attention is not being paid to these cases. It is not definitive. The new name for PCOS is a proposal. Now, the competent health authorities, as well as other independent scientists, must evaluate it. In England, the NHS has already assured who will evaluate the proposal carefully. It’s certainly a start. Now we just need to pay much more attention to the suffering of women. Cover | Magnificent | Sydney Fought In Xataka | ‘Children of Men’ is ceasing to be a dystopia: the global sperm count has been sinking for years

Three settings for iOS and Android that are more effective to avoid straining your eyes if you have presbyopia than changing the text size

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If you are already a few years old and presbyopia is starting to make an appearance, don’t limit yourself to making the text on your cell phone bigger. Let’s tell you others three most effective adjustments to avoid straining your eyes that you can turn to, and that are available on both Android and iOS. These are three fairly simple adjustments that are not going to be as disruptive in terms of showing less content on the screen as when you increase the font size. However, they are going to be even more effective in helping you read. The key is contrast, bold and white balance. Expands screen contrast In the accessibility options of your mobile you have an option to increase contrast or high contrast text. By doing so, there were no more pale grays or blues that are difficult to read, the mobile will force the apps to show the maximum contrast in your texts to make them easier to read. You can combine this option with reducing transparency on iOS or disabling blur effects on Android, to eliminate some translucent effects that can make content difficult to read. Turn on bold text On iOS, within the text display and size section in the accessibility options you will have the option to activate bold text. With this you will make all the letters of the operating system, from the clock to the notifications, appear in bold. This will make all text easier to read without having to make it larger. In Android 16 you will have an even more advanced option, which is outlined text, within the Screen and text size section in the accessibility options. This will add a small border to each character to make it much easier to read, even when there are complex backgrounds behind it. Adjust the white balance The third setting that I recommend you try is the white balance. In iOS the option is called Reduce white pointand it’s in the display and text size settings in the accessibility section. On Android the equivalent is in the screen tone settings, within the section Screen. With this, what you will do is reduce the intensity of pure whitesnot the brightness in general. By doing so, the screen will be less bright, and it will be more comfortable for your eyes to read, especially when you are using your mobile at night or in poorly lit areas. In Xataka Basics | How to create a podcast from a text to study, research or simply listen to if you don’t feel like reading

The superapp model that dominates in China never caught on in the West. something is changing

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Superapps are mobile applications that offer many unified services, from messaging to mobile payments and much more. In Asia, especially China, They are the default formula that has been successful for years with apps like WeChat, Meituan or AliPay. In the West we are more into specialized apps, but the market is beginning to show clear signs of approaching the Chinese model. The Uber case. Uber just announced the integration of hotel reservations in your app through its alliance with Expedia. In this way, in the same app we have car reservations, food delivery and hotel reservations, a solution that is quite similar to the model of a Chinese super app like WeChat, which integrates all types of services under one umbrella. Uber’s goal is that, by offering more services, the Uber One subscription will be more attractive to consumers and thus increase its income. An important detail: Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi was previously CEO of Expedia, so this alliance does not seem coincidental. TikTok Shop. Uber is not the only one that is following this strategy, there are other proposals that also point in the direction of consolidation. We have the clearest example with TikTok and the integration of the marketplace. ByteDance has managed to export a very Asian model: see a product in a video and buy it without leaving the app. TikTok Shop has been in Spain since the end of 2024 and, at the end of 2025, there is already a TikTok account more than 12,000 stores operating on its platform. The adoption data is positive, but the model is still very far from the penetration it has in China. There have been attempts. The creation of a super app that succeeds in the West was Elon Musk’s obsession when he bought Twitter. The bet did not work out and today X continues to be what Twitter was: a microblogging social network. PayPal also tried its superapp version integrating hotel reservations with little travel. Years ago there was talk that WhatsApp could be the WeChat of the West, but despite having been adding functions, it is still a messaging app. Looking to the future, we have the case of ChatGPT and its path to a super app that integrates the chatbot with the Atlas and Codex browser. Why in China yes and here no. It is not a question of simple preferences, but has a structural explanation: Internet penetration in China was much slower and, in some ways, skipped the era of the personal computer. While Western consumers came to the smartphone with already formed habits (a browser to search, an email program, an online store), the Chinese did so directly from the mobile phone. By not having already created habits, this made the creation of these “everything apps” much easier. Likewise, the penetration of credit and debit cards was also slow and many consumers switched from cash to mobile payments, hence apps like WeChat or AliPay have become the default standard for paying everywhere. Another factor that plays in favor of the adoption of these apps is that they had no competitors. With the entire Google and Facebook suite blocked by the Chinese government, these apps did not have to compete, but rather filled a void. And of course there is the regulatory issue and institutional support. in China you can pay taxes from WeChatapply for a business license or pay a traffic fine without leaving the app, because the Chinese government actively integrated its public services into these platforms. In the West, the merger between a private company and the State would generate immediate political and regulatory scrutiny. something is changing. On the one hand, the perception we have of China from the rest of the world has been changing in recent years. The success of TikTok, the Labubu, the popularity of electric cars… are symptoms that China has become a cultural reference and technological. This opens a new opportunity for success. On the other hand, there is a new variable: AI. The arrival of AI tools is already changing our information-seeking habits and has the potential to function as a layer on top of everything we already use, connecting services that previously lived separately. Image | IlgmyzinUnsplash In Xataka | The US has made an almost total commitment to enormous AI models. China is showing another way

South Korea overtakes China as ASML’s largest market. Sanctions are already changing the world

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In the first quarter of 2026, South Korea has accounted for 45% of ASML salesthe Dutch manufacturer of lithography machinery without which no advanced chip exists. China, which until now led the same ranking with 36%, has fallen to 19%. The order of the semiconductor world has been inverted in the duration of a ‘Q’. Why is it important. ASML is the only company on the planet capable of manufacturing extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machinesessential to produce chips less than 7 nanometers. Whoever controls access to ASML controls, to a large extent, which countries can manufacture elite semiconductors. That is why the figures for the first quarter of 2026 are not just another balance sheet but a way to understand the geopolitical map in real time. Or at least with “only” three weeks of latency. In figures: South Korea: 45% of ASML sales in Q1 2026 (up from 22% in the previous quarter). China: 19% (up from 36%). Taiwan: 23% (up from 13%). ASML’s total net sales in the quarter: €8.8 billion. Net profit: 2,760 million euros (+17% year-on-year). Sales forecast for 2026, revised upwards: between 36,000 and 40,000 million euros. The context. The United States has been building a sanctions architecture for years designed to disconnect China from access to advanced semiconductor technology. ASML, a Dutch company but with technology whose development has also involved American and British partners, stopped selling its EUV machines to China years ago. In 2023 added restrictions on more advanced DUV/UVP systems. What the first quarter data show is that this fence already has measurable effects on real sales flows. Between the lines. South Korea’s jump is not explained only by the Chinese fall. Samsung and SK Hynix They are in full race to build high-end memory capacity (the type of chip that powers AI data centers), and both companies have accelerated their orders for EUV machines. SK Hynix has committed nearly 12 trillion won (about 8.2 billion euros) in EUV lithography equipment for its Cheongju and Yongin factories. And Samsung, for its part, has placed a bulk order for approximately 20 EUV machines as part of a larger purchase of 70 systems for its P5 plant in Pyeongtaek. The underlying message is that the demand for AI is already sold in advance. According to ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet, customers in the memory segment have already exhausted their capacity for the entire year. Supply will not meet demand in the foreseeable future and prices continue to skyrocket. Main loser? China, without access to EUV, has been using older DUV systems for years and multiple exposure techniques to approach the 7 nanometer nodes. This translates into chips that are more expensive to produce and have lower yields. Companies like SMIC, ChangXin or Yangtze Memory Technologies operate under increasing financial pressure: the more exposures you need to compensate for the absence of EUV, the worse the production economics. The big question. Can China build its own ASML? There are prototypes in development and the ambition to achieve mass production of EUVs before 2030 is public and no one hides it. That doesn’t mean we can take it for granted: neither Nikon nor Canonwho have dominated lithography for decades, have managed to develop EUV systems. ASML is where it is because it spent years working to achieve it, and it also did so with a very well-coordinated ecosystem: Carl Zeiss optics, specialized laser technology, thousands of components from suppliers around the world… Replicating that from scratch, under sanctions, in less than five years, is a titanic task even for a country of 1.4 billion inhabitants and an excessive ambition. Yes, but. The restrictions, in fact, have not sunk China, but have forced it to adapt. SMIC produces 7 nanometer chips using alternative techniques, although at higher cost and on a smaller scale. The pace of state investment in semiconductors has not slowed down. And the fact that several engineers who have worked at ASML have ended up in Chinese projects has raised alarms on the other side of the Pacific. China has built its current position on a long-term mindset. The sanctions close the shortest path, but that does not mean that other paths do not exist. In Xataka | China prepares a 2nm AI chip to end NVIDIA’s dominance. Your problem is how you are going to manufacture it Featured image | ASML

We believed that AI was killing jobs in the tech industry. It is actually changing the rules of the game: Crossover 1×41

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It is possible that in the future AI will take away our jobs, but at the moment it is being taken away from very few. This was stated in a recent Anthropic study on the impact of AI on the labor market, and this is a perfect perch to present the debate that concerns us in Crossover 1×41. And it is a special edition because we have as a guest Jordi Arrufiof Talent Arena. This event, which is held within the framework of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, ​​is aimed at future developers and also senior profiles, and with it we had the opportunity to talk about how AI is changing the rules of the game for professionals in the sector. To begin, we must dispel myths. At least for now, because although there was a time that AI was going to replace programmers, what is being seen according to Arrufí is that The demand for technological talent is increasing. In fact, what is expected is that the impact of AI will cause this technology to begin to create jobs that we cannot even imagine. We also couldn’t imagine that with the rise of the Internet there would be frontend and backend developers or web designers: the same in this case. Many professionals may fear that future, and here the recommendation to be prepared for the future is that these professionals combine your technical capacity (‘hard skills’) with human capabilities (‘soft skills’) such as critical thinking, leadership or communication. The frenetic advancement of AI also makes the ability for continuous learning and adaptability key in these changing times. He vibe coding has changed the paradigm, and has opened this area even to users without basic programming knowledge. Plus there is something striking here. A real opportunity for current professionals and those to come, because if something is clearly taking off it is interest in technological sovereignty. Europe seeks to recover ground against the US and China through investments in chipsFor example. Public funding is especially critical to retaining talent and prevents professionals from emigrate for higher wages. We also had the opportunity to talk about another of the areas of greatest projection: robotics. It is expected a imminent adoption of humanoid robots in industry and in logistics processes. Domestic robots will take longer, no doubt, but what seems clear is that by 2035 the world will be dominated by AI agents and massive advances in fields such as biotechnology. This is not just about AI: It’s about talent, money and who adapts faster and in a more accurate way. On YouTube | Crossover In Xataka | A startup from Malaga is the most used European AI app in the world according to Andreessen Horowitz. It’s called Freepik

the new newsletter from Xataka Xtra about the trends that are changing the present and will define the future

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‘Proxima X’ is one of the newsletters exclusives included in Xtrathe Xataka subscription plan. It is biweekly (we send it every other Thursday) and is part of a benefits plan that includes access to other newsletters, a consultation with editors and raffles and discounts exclusive for subscribers. The first draw, a 75″ TV. For years, one of the last questions that every Xataka editor has asked his interviewees has been “If we were having this conversation In five or ten years, what would we be talking about??”. Next X is our commitment to doing exactly that every two weeks: talking, analyzing and thinking about the things that will be central a decade from now. And yes, we know it is a risky job. But who was going to tell that group of bloggers that They launched Xataka in November 2004 that 20 years later that passion for gadgets, online services and digital culture was going to be fundamental to understanding the contemporary world? The lesson is clear: we have to live passionately in the present, to understand what will define the future. We will talk about AI, quantum computing, biotechnology and space exploration, yes. But we will talk about many more things, because what defines this newsletter is not a list of topics, it is a question: what’s next? And “up next” this week has been the profound effect that technology has on human societies. One in particular: boredom. Is it possible that one of the most unexpected (and important) consequences of all the technological development of recent decades is boredom? Well yes and, as I say, It is much more important than it seems. Other Xataka Xtra newsletters Chip War (weekly, every Monday): The semiconductor industry is the technological, economic and geopolitical battlefield of our time. Every week we analyze what is happening in the race for chips: from the tensions between the United States and China to the decisions of TSMC, Intel, SK Hynix or Samsung that will determine who leads the next decade. B-sides (weekly, every Saturday): Five curious and fascinating readings every week. Strange, counterintuitive or unexpected stories that we find on the Internet and that deserve your attention. From industrial accidents that changed the world to surprising scientific research or absurdities of late capitalism. More information | Xataka Xtra

Thousands of CEOs admit that nothing is changing (yet). The productivity paradox of the 80s resurfaces with force

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AI will make us more productive, the studies said and AI advocates. It is a discourse that is already well known and seemed reasonable: models allow us to automate routine tasks and use that time on other productive things, right? Well, the truth is, (at the moment) no. And what is happening is curiously the same thing that happened 40 years ago. The productivity paradox. In 1987 the economist and Nobel Prize winner Robert Solow realized of a singular paradox in the so-called “information age”. The transistors, microprocessors, and integrated circuits discovered in the 1960s were supposed to revolutionize businesses and dramatically increase productivity. What happened was just the opposite. Productivity growth did not accelerate, but rather slowed down: between 1948 and 1973 it was 2.9%, but since 1973 that growth was only 1.1%. So much chip for nothing? It seemed that way, at least those first few years. History repeats itself: AI is of little use. As they point out in Fortunethat paradox has resurfaced just now that we are suffering exactly the same thing with AI. A new study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) reveals a striking conclusion after surveying no less than 6,000 CEOs, CFOs and other managers from several countries: they see very little impact of AI on their real operations. AI is not changing anything. Although two-thirds of the managers surveyed indicated that they used AI in their processes, this use was very limited: about 1.5 hours per week. 25% of participants indicated that they did not use AI at all at work. Nearly 90% of the companies that participated highlighted that AI has not influenced their hiring or productivity in the last three years. But they are optimistic. The use of AI by these executives appears to be very limited at the moment, but those same companies are still waiting for a substantial impact. In fact, they expect productivity to increase by 1.4% in the next three years. Another paradox: these first years AI was supposed to cut hiring by 0.7%, but respondents revealed a 0.5% increase in those hiring. The data confirm that at the moment, little. The truth is that the vaunted AI revolution has still not become a reality, at least in terms of productivity and economic return. Economist Torsten Slok recently indicated that “AI is everywhere except in macroeconomic data: you don’t see it in employment, productivity or inflation data.” His thesis: the impact of AI is currently almost zero. In fact, except in the case of technology’s “Magnificent Seven,” there are no signs of profit margins or revenue expectations. But these revolutions take time. The revolution that semiconductors brought us took a while to crystallize, but it ended up doing so: in the 1990s and 2000s were produced productivity improvements such as an increase of 1.5% between 1995 and 2005. There are experts who they point because in fact this change in trend has already begun to occur: in the US, GDP in the fourth quarter grew by 3.7% despite the fact that there were job cuts. That points to an increase in productivity. Slok also pointed to this possibility, and theorized that the impact could end up having a “J” shape, first slowing down and then exploding. Let them tell the steam engine. Previous industrial revolutions, such as the one that produced the steam engine or, even more importantly, electricity, took their time. The initial delay disappeared over the course of subsequent decades because these technologies needed time to spread to the rest of the productive sectors. Excessive optimism does not help, of course, and at the moment what is reasonable seems to lie somewhere in between: neither “AI is useless” nor “AI will do everything for us.” Perhaps the only thing AI needs—in addition to improving—is for us to give time to time. It is not in vain that many describe it as “the new electricity.” Image | The Standing Desk In Xataka | Until now “software was eating the world.” Now AI is eating software

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