Spanish

Spanish bank has made a “confiscatory” tax in Confetti for its party: 8.4 billion benefits

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8,487 million euros. That is the joint benefit of the six great banks quoted in Spain during the first quarter of 2025. 27% more than a year ago, according to The economist. The most striking thing is that they have achieved it in full application of the extraordinary government of the Government, to which They called “Confiscator”, “disproportionate” and “harmful to the stability of the financial system.” That tax has ended up being a mere accounting score. A cost that can be moved, adjust, deduce. In summary: overcome. Why is it important. Because it shows a historical constant: when trying extraordinary to financial power, it reacts extraordinarily effectively. And because he talks about systemic inequality: a citizen cannot choose when and how to pay their taxes, but a bank does. And you can even earn more money along the way. In detail. Of the 1.4 billion euros that the bank tax was supposedly costing this year, only 351 million have impacted the first quarter accounts. Not because it has been repealed. But because this year is prorated. The regulations allow deductions of up to 25% of the tax base, a circumstance that financial entities have taken advantage of to optimize their results. Bankinterdirectly, will not pay anything this year or the one that comes. Thanks to the deductions of the Corporation Tax, its fiscal invoice has been zero. CaixaBankthat does pay, it is almost the one that wins the most: +46.2% benefit. He Santander It reduces its tax burden of 74%, and earns 3,402 million. And the BBVAin a context of downward types, its results improves 22.7%. Between bambalins. The strategy is double: accountant and narrative. Accounting, the tax is fractional and make up with deductions. Narratively, the sector projected a resistance image. But the reality is that the tax has not altered the fundamental: Has not stopped profitability (Rote up to 20%). It has not reduced dividends. The business trend has not changed: in Spain, banks grow 48%. The banks expressed concern about the impact, but the adaptation of their fiscal strategies has considerably damping the effect they had planned. The backdrop. In 2024, The tax was loadedand the bank raised his voice. But since then they have learned to manage it. The new design gives them air. A “fiscal air” that allows them to continue flying although in theory they carry ballast in the form of extra tax load. In addition, this fiscal relief more than compensates for the setback in the margin of interest, which falls 3.95% due to the decrease of types. But The gross margin rises 8.31%thanks especially to commissions … already the aforementioned tax adjustments. In perspective. While the general economy looks at the Iribor of side and keeps inflation, the banking sector demonstrates adaptation to the fiscal environment. They have not only avoided the coup, but continue to meet objectives before shareholders and investors. And incidentally, they leave a message to the markets: not even before a sudden tax its benefits are stopped. Outstanding image | BBVA In Xataka | The sweet moment of Revolut: Duplicates his profits in 2024 and aspires to become a whole rule

Spanish nuclear have been criticized for their role in the blackout. This was what they did before, during and after collapse

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On April 29, just a few hours after Total collapse of the electricity grid Spanish, Pedro Sánchez, the president of the Government of Spain, He made these statements: “Citizens should know that during this crisis nuclear power plants, far from being a solution, have been a problem Because they were turned off. And it has been necessary to divert large amounts of energy to maintain their stable nuclei. At this time there are two nuclear centrals activated, and they are not because they are needed, but because their activation was already planned. “ His words require several nuances if we want to know in some detail what was the role of Spanish nuclear facilities in this incident and what they did before, during and after the total blackout. The first thing is worth repairing is that only three of the seven nuclear reactors of the Spanish park were turned off: the Trillo because the technicians were recharging fuel barsand those of Almaraz I and chests due to the needs that the electric market had at that time. The other four nuclear reactors, those of Almaraz II, Ascó I and II and Vandellós II, were operating normally before the blackout occurred. If we have this present the statement of Pedro Sánchez in which he argues that “(…) nuclear power plants, far from being a solution, have been a problem because they were turned off (…)” is not right. As we have just seen, Four reactors were delivering electricity to the network with total normality. In any case, the most interesting is what happened just when the collapse occurred. Security systems went into action to guarantee a safe stop Nuclear reactors are prepared to stop fission reactions whenever. The procedure that is used, very broadly, consists of introducing the control bars in the active section of the vessel, which are made of metal alloys of boron, cadmium or hafnio because these chemical elements have the ability to absorb a large number of neutrons. Fission reactions stop very quickly thanks to the effect of control bars, but, and this is very important, nuclear reactors have a great thermal inertia. This simply means that once the flow of neutron has stopped completely the reactor continues to generate residual heat due to the disintegration of products derived from nuclear fission. The main consequence of this behavior is evident: It is essential to sustain core cooling of the reactor even although this machine has stopped by introducing the control bars and modifying the composition of the refrigerant By adding boric acid to the primary circuitwhich also has a very high index of neutron absorption. Active and liabilities refrigeration systems must ensure that residual heat does not compromise the integrity of the reactor Active and passive cooling systems have to ensure that residual heat does not compromise the integrity of the reactor, and, curiously, thermal inertia can last even for several days. When on April 28 there was the collapse of the Electric Red the four reactors that were in operation were automatically stopped and the security systems that have been designed to hold a safe stop were activated. The first thing that happened was that autonomous diesel generators started automatically and generated the electricity that was necessary at that time to keep the entire installation on a safe stop. Everything was executed as planned according to the Nuclear Safety Council. A few hours later, when the supply of electricity from abroad resumed, the autonomous diesel groups were disconnected and the emergency plan was deactivated. From that moment on, nuclear centrals have been resuming the production of electricity, although before doing so the technicians have carried out the security checks that are necessary. An important note once we have reached this point: the recovery of the activity of nuclear power plants and their synchronization with the electricity grid are carried out as the system operator, which is Red Eléctrica de España, and the electricity market requires it. A week after the total blackout we have no solid reason to conclude that Spanish nuclear power plants have put us in danger. Image | Nuclear forum More information | Nuclear forum In Xataka | China and Russia have an extremely ambitious plan: in 2028 they will build a nuclear power plant on the moon

A Norwegian company is building an empire buying Spanish software startups for SMEs. With patience and without mergers

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Norway houses one of the biggest Spanish software startup buyers, although not well known beyond the niche niche. With five acquisitions since 2021 and more than 250 million euros invested in Spain, Visma has become a fundamental actor in the national technology and entrepreneuraccording to a long analysis of EcoTechers. Operational independence as a management model The Nordic giant broke into the Spanish market in 2021 with The acquisition of HoldedBarcelona business management software, which disbursed more than 190 million euros. Since then, has incorporated to declaring, woffu, quaderno and, The most recent, Tugesto, A Valencian startup that was participated by Angels, Juan Roig’s investment society, president of Mercadona. “I would expect something more this year for own ambition and project ambition. 2025 and 2026 are going to be years of many outings of Private Equity who entered the year 2021 and 2022. We are already beginning to see movements, “says Miguel García-Paredes, responsible for mergers and acquisitions for Spain and Portugal of Visma, according to EcoTechers. The most striking of its strategy is that, unlike other corporate buyers, Visma maintains companies acquired as independent entities, retaining their brands and management teams. “The idea of ​​visma is to set up an ecosystem rather than also from entrepreneurs and conserve the entrepreneur,” said García-Paredes. This philosophy was evident after the recent purchase of Tugesto. As reports The economist“It will continue to operate as an independent company under the same name and address.” Manuel Fandos, CEO of Tugesto, said That this union represents “a unique opportunity to revolutionize business management together, especially in a market such as payroll software, where much remains to be achieved and innovate in Spain.” Who is visma: the discreet multinational Founded in 1996 by merger It was privatized by the HG capital fund. Currently, its shareholding is distributed mainly between HG Capital (70%) and the Sustain Fund of Singapore GIC (14%). The company has closed the year 2024 with 2.8 billion euros of income, a growth of 17%, and 893 million EBITDA (+26.6%)according to data provided to EcoTechers. In Spain, where it has more than 400 employees, it hopes to reach 60 million billing this year. “Spain is one of the highest growth for visma,” said Merete Hverven, CEO of the group, to The economist In 2023. “From our landing in 2021, we grow at a rate of 70%.” Visma has perfected its acquisition strategy after More than 373 completed operations worldwide. Only between 2023 and 2024 closed more than 70 purchases. In Spain, its focus is on SME -centered software startupsan easy pattern to detect seeing your history. According to García-Paredes, they look for companies that meet or approach the “40 rule” for software, that is, the sum of the percentage of income in income and the Ebitda margin is equal to or greater than 40. The company, which has a presence in 27 countries in Europe and Latin America, sees in Spain a strategic market for its size – almost 50 million inhabitants – and for the “growing advance of digitalization”, factors that predict that there will be more acquisitions in the future. Outstanding image | VISMA In Xataka | The technological basis of quantum computers developed in Europe: what happened so that in the long term we lost the race

Two Spanish preppers tell us how they lived yesterday’s great blackout

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Five seconds. It is what was needed to 60% of Spain’s energy vanished This April 28. At 12:33 in the morning 15 GW of generation were lost in the system, causing a total blackout that caught many without the necessary elements To face an absolute disconnection situation in which the radio was the only window to the information. But there are those who did not spend the dark night or eating food remains of the refrigerator. They are people who have gone preparing for this type of situation And they tell us how they lived it, their tricks and that everything were jokes in their surroundings until they had to ask for a flashlight to spend the night. “What happened yesterday cannot happen again. And he can never happen again,” I commented Pedro Sánchez, president of Spain, at the press conference on April 29. Little by little it comes to light Information about the blackout that left us from those 12:33 on Monday, without electricity on the peninsula and without mobile data to communicate. To the afternoon lake, the system, Thanks to emergency servicesbegan to relive little by little, but this is something that forces us to review something as fundamental as, it can be, undervalued: The weak points of the Spanish Electric Red. Now, not only authorities must act: citizens also have something to say thanks to preparation. But, of course, The idea of ​​giving supplies And to prepare a survival kit does not appear in our mind from one day to another without something that triggers that idea. Miguel Morales is one of those people who have a series of elements at home so it can happen. “He gave me by because, after Covid, it became clear that the difference between a critical situation and a house holiday was just how you were prepared,” he tells us. Isra Fernándezpartner of Applesferais another one of those preparations for whatever comes. In his case, that spark to start creating his kit was very previous. “I’ve always been a bit ‘tarado’ with this ‘, but maybe … the 11S. He caught me out of the institute and touched my head. Then, my friends and I were always with” And if one day something happened like in ’28 days later’? ” As clarification, ‘28 days later‘It’s a zombie apocalypse movie. But although he September 11, 2001 I could turn on that spark, as in the case of Miguel, the Covid was the climax. “We supplied and could help neighbors and friends,” Isra tells us. It had gas camping, canned food, survival rations and thirty liters of water. I told myself “If you have to go, I’m here prepared” During that period, “there were people who had a really bad and others who until well” thanks to those supplies they had at home, Complete Miguel. But … what supplies? In the case of a pandemic, non -perishable foods, many in can to make homemade hornos, are “The most useful thing you can have”he tells us. And, before a blackout like yesterday, the trick was to pull batteries. “I have two batteries and both were used yesterday. Isra comments that it has 50 AA and 50 AAA batteries, and both mention the radio. Whether batteries or crank, became something essential. “Although at the beginning it was limited to reading Red Eléctrica tweets, when the coverage fell were quite key to remain informed,” says Miguel. Apart from being able to charge with sunlight, these flashlights provide a good atmosphere inside the house | Photo by Miguel Morales Isra points out that, where appropriate, it is not batteries, but of crank. Thus it does not depend on batteries and its model (this) It is loaded by kinetic energy, solar or by power to feed a 10,000 mAh battery that, in addition to the point of light, serves as a charger. It also has AM/FM radio and compass. Isra’s flashlight Within that preparation, a very important point is food. Again: not so much for events that last a few hours, such as the blackout, but for others that can be expanded months or even weeks. Isra details an absolute arsenal of food, composed of four drums of water, honeyboats, peanut cream and 10 kg of powdered milk, as well as 20 legumes and fruit cans in syrup, stating that “the ideal would be to have about 100, mainly peas, chickpeas and food with vegetable protein.” Not everything is technology: there are also candles | Photo by Miguel Morales The Gas Camping is also a good idea because there are very compact equipment that allows you to heat food in this type of situations, but they are also interesting to use from time to time for certain dishes if in your kitchen you have hobbles or induction. And Miguel tells us that he spent the day with three types of food: meals prepared in can, instant noodles and fruit. Now, How do you collect that amount of cans? “During the last six months, in each purchase I have included long -lasting products. So I have not had to make a fat purchase and I have distributed the expense,” says Miguel. Of course, not everything is to have the material and there are a series of tricks to spend the day as well as possible in these situations. Sunflower oil, for example, does not work only for cooking, but to use fuel in the gas campsite if a blackout is dilated too much and you run out of gas. Canned cans not only serve to save foodbut to make homemade hornillos. Isopropyl water and alcohol garages | Photo by Miguel Morales On the flashlights, Miguel states that beyond those of focus, those that have a wide beam are more helpful to create atmosphere in a room than those that have the directed beam and there is another factor: the blackout may be or what makes us dust off the emergency kit does not catch us at home and … Read more

The “eternal chemicals” are already everywhere. And that includes one of our favorite places: Spanish wine

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The “eternal chemicals” have become a hot issue. These chemicals are widely used in a variety of contexts but their increasingly common presence in the environment worries both environmentalists and the health sector. And for now we know little about the possible impact of these substances on the health of people and in ecosystems. “Eternal” chemicals in wine. A study by the environmental association European bread(PHASE Action Network Europe) He has warned of the presence in the European wine of one of the substances we usually refer to as “eternal chemicals”: trifluoroacetic acid. PFAS and TFA. PFAS are the acronym with which we often refer to the category of perfluoroalized and polyfluoralized substances. It is a family of synthetic molecules (there are about 4,700 compounds of this type) that stand out for resistance that imbues the union between fluorine and carbon atoms. These compounds They are useful For example, in the manufacture of non -stick objects, but they can also be found in pesticides, containers or hygiene products. This is a molecular union Extremely stabledoes not react to external agents so it is extremely difficult to make these substances decompose, either by natural processes or otherwise. That is why these substances tend to accumulate in nature and, potentially, in our body. Interestingly, one of the problems with these substances is in one of the products as a result of the decomposition of the PFAS, the trifluoroacetic acid (TFA). This is precisely the “eternal chemist” on which the new study has focused. 49 wines. The analysis It began with a dozen Austrian wines of relatively old vintages and was expanding to include more recent crops and other countries. In total, 49 wines were analyzed, including at least one produced in Spain. They observed that wines prior to 1988 They did not contain traces of TFAbut that from that year the concentrations were increasing, first little by little and, as of 2010, significantly. The average concentrations in the vines of vintages between 2021 and 2024 was 122 µg/l, although peaks of up to 300 µg/l were detected. Although the phenomenon extended throughout Europe, the team indicated that Austrian wines were the most affected. Other Detail highlighted By the association it was the correlation between the concentrations of TFA and waste of synthetic pesticides. Ecological production The study of European bread He noted that ecological production wines also did not get rid of the presence of these substances, although it is true that they showed some concentrations less than those found in other wines. To what extent are a risk? Today we do not know for sure the effects of “eternal chemicals” on our health, but there are some indications that allow us to get an idea of ​​these possible effects. TFA has been linked, for example, problems for Fertility; But other compounds of this family have also been related to immune problems and even a greater risk of cancer. In Xataka | Some scientists have proposed to solve the big question: is it more “healthy” white wine or red? Image | Hermes Rivera

Spanish is more fashionable than ever in China. We know it because they are even translating reggaeton songs to the Chinese

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Spain is a very popular country in China. Good proof of this are the 647,801 Chinese tourists who visited our country in 2024. Which represents an increase of 66.7% compared to 2023, according to published data by The reason. That euphoria for Spain also has its reflection in the increase in the interest of the Chinese to learn Spanish. One of the most obvious tests of that enthusiasm we have found in the most unexpected place: Notease Cloud Music, a streaming music platform similar to Spotify in which the number of translations to Chinese have been fired from the letters of the lyrics of the lyrics of the letters of the letters of the Reggaeton songs in Spanish. Spanish in Chinese classrooms. Spanish is living an unprecedented boom in China. According to the report “The Spanish: A Living Language” of 2024 prepared by the Cervantes Institute, there are currently about 54,283 Spanish students in the teaching centers of the Asian country. Of these, approximately 8,874 are learning Spanish at primary, secondary and professional training levels, while 34,823 are learning it at the university. The most striking thing is that 10,586 are learning it in academies and by other media and that is where the use of other alternative learning channels of the language such as the lyrics of the songs comes into play. Songs to learn Spanish. According to An elaborate study by the Department of Translation and Language Sciences of the Pompeu Fabra University of Barcelona, ​​Latin music, and especially reggaetonhas become a powerful tool for teaching and learning Spanish in China. The lyrics of the reggaeton songs are bringing students closer to colloquial and cultural expressions of the Spanish -speaking world that They have no representation In the academic field. According to the study of which has echoed Phys.orgnon -professional and users translators have shared in the Chinese music streaming application Note was Cloud Music Translations in Chinese of songs originally sung in Spanish. Some of those letters have achieved millions of visualizations, becoming referents for those who learn Spanish for free. A letter from Bad Bunny translated into Chinese China goes perreo. According to the data collected by the study of the Pompeu Fabra University, the reggaeton songs They are the most popular Among Chinese students seeking to learn Spanish in an alternative way, being the preferred genre for their catchy rhythm and colloquial language. However, the translation of the letters of Reggaeton raises unique challenges due to explicit content and the presence of colloquial expressions without direct equivalent in Chinese. To save these cultural and linguistic differences, translators use strategies such as domestication, the use of euphemisms and the creative adaptation of phrases to go unnoticed to censorship of algorithms In China. In China nobody “leaves you planted”. Colloquial expressions That we usually use in Spanish, such as “left” or “fuck”, have no direct translation to the Chinese, so translators have lay new linguistic bridges using their own expressions with a similar meaning. The researchers detected that, for example, to translate the expression “leave planted”, the Chinese translators used the Chinese expression “release pigeons (放鸽子). Traditionally, the pigeons have been considered messengers and, in the Chinese imaginary, release a dove that does not return is associated with a broken promise, approaching in a symbolic way the Chinese the meaning of the expression to the local public. Sexual references, so common in Latin genres, have also had their creative translation, and have changed “fuck” or “do” the original letters for expressions such as “possess” or “exchange pleasure.” In addition, to avoid censorship, asterisks are interspersed between the Hanzi (Chinese characters) to mislead the censorship algorithms (性*感/火*辣) when words “uploads” or anglicisms such as Hot, sexy either Horny. In Xataka | One in three employees uses AI at work: your position is not in danger because most use it as a translator Image | Wikimedia Commons (Glenn Francis), Unspash (Ondřej Matouš)

The olive oil campaign is doing so well that Spanish olivers have already lost 270 million euros

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At the end of January, the Almazares de Middle Country They were working 24 hours a day and were direct to triple the amounts of olive last year. It seemed good news. Moreover, after years of drought, it was excellent news. But, As we warnedcould become a problem. Well, it is already becoming a problem. But how will it be a problem? I recognize that it may seem paradoxical. We carry several campaigns in which the big problem is that There were no olives. That shot prices, yes: but hardly compensated for the different links in the production chain. It is no coincidence that the world’s largest olive oil company lost 34 million euros only in 2023. Now there are olives. The problem is that there are too many and that the sector is in such a weak state, that it has not been able to contain the price drop. There the complications begin. Have prices fallen so much? At consumer level, not so much. But originally the situation has been very down. To get an idea, According to data from the Information and Food Control Agencyonly in March, “135,000 tons have been marketed (including imports) to an average of 3.62 euros in all categories.” The amount is important, yes. Above all, because (Docked by international trade problems) We have reached a rhythm that can be at risk of the campaign link: reserves that allow stabilizing the price throughout the year. That is, it is important. But the key is the price. What can we learn from the price? Historically, the line of the traditional dry land olive tree I was around four euros. It is true that the irruption of the irrigation olive tree and the New superintenive varieties They make many profitable farms at lower prices, but the bulk of the Spanish oil Keep from dry. And that dry land has been the worst the crisis of recent years. The current price drop in origin puts it in a very complicated situation. A complication of 270 million euros. In that amount, the UPA Secretary General Andalusia, Jesús Cózar, the dimension of the problem. “The olive groves have stopped receiving 270 million euros in the month of March, or what is the same, more than 8 million daily, due to the current situation of ruin prices at origin,” explained. Your complaint is debatable, but makes sense. Because, indeed, “There are no objective reasons that justify this bearish trend of prices at origin.” Taking into account current reserves, technically speaking the price would have to be superior: oil is coming out at a rate that is not sustainable. And that is what worries the producers. Knowing that in normal circumstances, the olive would have to sell almost two euros more expensive and, in this way, the 2024-2025 campaign would have been a revulsion. Right now is just another year of agony. Image | MILTOF | Pom ‘ In Xataka | Right now there are thousands and thousands of tons of olive oil embarking on the United States

It has rained so much that Spanish legumes are literally rage

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A phytosanitary alert. Most of the time everything starts like this: a phytosanitary alert and chaos. In this case, the alarm He has launched it The Junta de Castilla y León and the reason has been the rage and Mildiu. We do not know if 2025 will be the worst year for legumes in Spain, but of course it will try. What happened? That the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Rural Development Spanish and Leonesa “He has issued A phytosanitary alert aimed at farmers in the region, especially those who cultivate legumes “before the detection of rage (disgust) and Mildiu. It is no accident. The abundant rain of recent months creates the perfect conditions for these two diseases to extend like gunpowder. They are two diseases of fungal origin that cause lesions in leaves, stems or pods. And, in general, they greatly reduce the performance of the bushes. What does the alert entail? In general, a series of recommendations. The Board asks farmers to monitor their plots actively, make an individualized diagnosis if they find visible symptoms of the disease and manage it according to the Technical Support Protocols which facilitates the Ministry. But is it really a problem? Yes. Having fungi of this type belling at ease for some of the main agricultural areas of the country is always a problem. But as if that were a little, it is a quite bad year for legumes. And the best example is the chickpeas. In good part of the country, chickpea plantations They go with great delay. In general, the chickpea has to be more than 100 days in the countryside and “this year, hopefully, will pass 60”. In fact, Just a couple of weeks ago“the plant would have to measure a span and still without sowing” because the accumulation of water on the grounds made it unfeasible. This is a problem because The norms of common agricultural policy obliges to farmers to plant legumes. So we find crops under developed by meteorology and that are widespread for an administrative issue: there is only a plague to round the argument of an economic and productive crisis of a considerable size. To this we must add that our largest chickpea supplier (Commercial war through) It is the United States. And what will happen? It is a good question. Except that implode the international market, consumers are not likely to notice all this. After all, Mexico, Canada and other countries They are in conditions to compensate for our legume needs. At the productive level, The thing is more complicated: As I said, the PAC makes exposure to a bad legume harvest high. And that will complicate the life of a good part of a sector that, After years of droughtI hoped to recover normal this 2025. All scenario are on the table, but what seems clear is that lthe processes of Fielding of the field will accelerate. Image | Shelley Pauls | Aemet In Xataka | It has rained 143% more than normal this March. Although it does not seem like it, for the Spanish field it is also a problem

We do not know what the Benchmarks of Ia measure. So we have talked to the Spanish who created one of the most difficult

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Gemini 2.5 Pro is the best model in history. The smartest. At least, right now. I don’t say it, he says The Chatbot Arena classificationa platform in which they run various tests or benchmarks to try to measure the global capacity of modern AI models. According to these evidence, at this time Gemini 2.5 pro experimental, launched On March 25, it has a score of 1,440 points, well above GPT-4O (1,406), Grok 3 (1,404), GPT-4.5 (1,398) and of course an Depseek R1 that despite its fame is in seventh place with a score of 1,359 points. In current Ranking of Chatbot Arena, it places Gemini Pro 2.5 experimental as the most capable model of AI at the moment. That (probably) does not last long. Google herself presumed the capacity of Gemini 2.5 Pro experimental in the official announcement. As usually happens in these ads, companies show a table in which they compare their performance with that of other comparable models in different tests. In almost all of them Google crushed their rivals in well -known tests in this segment. Is for example the Humanity’s last exam (general knowledge and reasoning), GPQA Diamond (science), Aime 2025 (math), Livecodebench V5 and Swe-Bench Verified (programming) or Mmmu (visual reasoning). All these benchmarks try to measure the ability of these models in more or less specific fields, and all help to demonstrate that models, indeed, are improving. And yet none of them answer the fundamental question: Is the AI so intelligent Like the human being? There is the really complicated, because the definition of intelligence is not entirely clear either. There are different types of intelligence, in fact, and measuring them in humans is not simple or even possible either. And comparing the ability of an AI with the ability of human intelligence is usually not easy. Some experts wonder if IA laboratories will not be cheating with the benchmarks There are in fact who argues that the progress of AI models is misleading. It recently Dean Valentine, from the Startup Zeroopath. He and his team created an AI system that analyzes large code projects in search of security problems. With Claude 3.5 Sonnet They noticed a great leap, but from there the subsequent versions have seemed much less striking. In fact, this expert pointed out that today many of the companies that launch these models focus too much on going well on the photo of the existing and most popular benchmarks and “sound intelligent” in conversations with human beings. Wonders if the laboratories of AIs are cheating and lying: For him the evolution shown by Benchmarks does not correspond to the real benefits when using them. Frontiermath and the challenge of solving problems that (almost) nobody has solved But there are attempts to answer that question. One of them comes from the team that develops THE ARC-AGI 2 PROJECTa set of evidence derived from the Moravec paradox: They are relatively easy for human being, but very difficult for AI models. Jaime Sevilla, CEO of Epoch Ai. These tests measure the ability to generalize and abstract reasoning with visual puzzles, and are undoubtedly an interesting part of that effort to value how far we have arrived at every moment with the AI ​​models. Another of the most striking tests of recent times is Frontiermath. This benchmark created by the company COPHAI It consists of about 300 mathematical problems of different level. They have been designed by a team of more than 60 mathematicians among which Terence Tao, winner of the Fields Medal. Although there are some more affordable problems, 25% of them are qualified as especially complex. In fact, only the best experts could solve them, and It would take even days In doing so. This set of tests is also special for another aspect: these are unpublished problems and therefore have not been part of the training sets of any AI model. To solve them the machines need to be able to show a special “mathematical intelligence.” One that It helps precisely to something increasingly difficult: Assess the evolution of these models. In Xataka we have been able to talk to Jaime Sevilla (@Jsevillamol), which is precisely the CEO of COPHAI and has a very clear and personal vision on how the tests should be to measure the ability of an AI model. To begin with, he points out, “you need to have a way of measuring how the AI ​​is advancing. Interacting with it can give you perspective, but you do not have a rigorous impression of where it will arrive and in what domains it is most expert.” That, he explains, makes it necessary to have standardized test batteries that allow us to form an idea of ​​their skills. For this expert the Benchmark Arc-AGI is more representative of that other vision, making an easy benchmark for humans but difficult for AI. The models are improving in Arc-Agi, but for him that was obvious and that had to happen. With yours the tests are difficult for each other, and that the models advance and are increasingly better when solving these problems is not so obvious. Thus, with FrontierMath they wanted to “try to measure if AI can solve genuinely difficult problems.” Until now the mathematical problems that were subjected to the AI ​​models were relatively easy, so the models “saturated the benchmarks”, that is, they soon managed to overcome all these tests and achieve a 100% score. “It will be a challenge to saturate this benchmark“He stressed. Here I set an example with OPENAI’s O3-mini model, which already solves 10% of FrontierMath. It is not much, but it is brutal, he says, and has already surpassed expert mathematicians like himself. However, he says, “That the AI ​​overcomes certain benchmarks does not mean that it can operate as a human expert. You have to adjust them because they are adjusted to very specific scenarios. We are measuring those limits of that AI, and that will be a continuous process.” For Seville … Read more

The Spanish administration is obsessed with AI. Granada and its broken street monitoring is the last test

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Granada has just embrace a new system to monitor in real time the status of its urban elements. One based, of course, in artificial intelligence. A car, Lidar sensors, high precision GPS and a municipal management platform responsible for collecting this data for later treatment. The news comes a few weeks after the Traffic light implementation with AI to regulate the state of traffic in one of the most chaotic roundabouts in the city. They are evidence of an obsession of the Spanish administration of a time to this part: automate processes with AI. That road is broken. The damage on public roads are inevitable. And it is the obligation of the State responsible for repairing them with immediacy. In fact, if you suffer an accident for poor state of some road, you are protected by article 106 of the Spanish Constitution. This establishes that any individual will have the right to be compensated for any injury that he and his assets suffer whenever the injury is “a consequence of the functioning of public services.” The plan. Granada wants to be aware of the damage in its urban environment, both on roads and in the rest of its streets: painted, infrastructure in poor condition, damage of all kinds. To do this, in collaboration with Innovasur, it will implement a car equipped with hardware capable of capturing in real time the status of the urban environment (through cameras, Lidar and GPS), sending this data to a management platform responsible for monitoring the information. The objective is to monitor large surfaces in a short time, and provide complete information to the city to expedite operational efficiency. AI, AI and more. Granada’s plan joins the wide list of Spanish cities using AI for things. Cordova already regulates Some of its traffic lights with AI to detect pedestrians with disabilities, Santander has one of the greater urban infrastructures related to the world, and Valencia already proves artificial intelligence functions to prevent natural disasters. Spain is not at the forefront in AIalthough we do not stop seeing new projects related to it. The main doubt? The one we always have with AI: It is not trustworthy. The Spanish transpiés with AI. The Ábalos case is one of the most recent and sounded in this “bad” cloud. Some of the transcripts of the statements of Judge Leopoldo Puente or the former Minister José Luis Ábalos were made with AI tools. The results were absolutely terrible. Something even more serious happened recently with the National Police: I had been using an AI for six years to detect false complaints. An AI whose reliability Now we know it was quite debatable. Modernizing administration is useful and necessary. As long as we base these tools on reliable methods. In Xataka | The infrastructure boom for AI begins to show cracks: China accumulates unreasonable data centers, and is not the only one Image | Martin MassonWaymo

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