1st Edition, no revision.
What once seemed far away — a matter of months or even years in the days before AI — has now turned into something that happens in weeks or mere days.
Recently, I commented on the new wave of AI — the AI agents.
The frenzy around intelligent bots, which still cause some astonishment among popular audiences, will soon have their spotlight stolen by AI agents. What in the past we would project to take months or years will now unfold in a fraction of that time.
Just as AI-supported research accelerates results, AI agents accelerate entire processes, capable of reacting and responding to unexpected changes.
An AI agent specialized in a human task becomes a “superhuman” in that specialty.
In IT — and certainly in many other fields — we can already acquire a ready-to-use agent for our own notebook. Yes, on our personal “little machine”!
I use the term “little machine” here not pejoratively, but as a reminder that until very recently, AI demanded resources far beyond domestic use.
This means we may soon have an artificial “living being,” or almost like one, performing tasks for you on your notebook — and, who knows, very soon on your smartphone. And like any “living being,” it may develop a kind of “will of its own,” doing things beyond what is expected or desired, as seen in recent tests where agents exceeded their domains, carrying out invasive actions beyond control.
These agents will accelerate the popularization of robotic specialists, all within a simple chip on a small motherboard, reducing the cost of countless smart devices that will become as common as refrigerators.
Much of this relief in processing will come from the growing super-connectivity that new communication standards are beginning to provide.
It is planned to replace the 5G standard around 2030, when we will have 6G.
We will leap from today’s peak of 10 Gbps to 1 Tbps (terabit per second) — that is, 1,000 times faster than 5G.
To get a practical sense of this speed, just remember that a tera has 12 zeros. Imagine that many bits being transmitted every second!
And here’s the detail: it’s not just speed! It’s a protocol born to natively support AI/ML (Machine Learning), IoT (the connection of all things), and even holography (3D images).
To our eyes today, this seems immense — but it is little compared to the quantum technologies now emerging on the stage of scientific possibilities, with capabilities like entanglement, multiprotocol integration, and neuromorphism (something like intelligence processing migrating from the processor to the very wire that carries it, just as it happens in our brains through synapses — Yes! We are super machines, we just don’t know it! lol).
Crazy stuff, right? Well… for us! Because for your grandchildren or great-grandchildren, 6G will be nothing but scrap.
With the ability to integrate systems into ever smaller and more powerful hardware, whose processing can be expanded externally thanks to powerful communication, the commercial evolution of AI agents goes beyond the limits of our imagination — and also of our fear!!!
So… if everything is produced much faster, the rhythm of life changes completely.
This means, dear reader, that our economic and social “tick-tock” now takes on an unprecedented global dynamic, independent of cultural differences, changing the rhythm of activities and, consequently, the evolution of all sectors — when the “tomorrow” of “today” used to take so long to become the “today” of that “tomorrow.”
This completely changes our lives because it also transforms the entire socioeconomic chain, which now operates at a pace never before expected or foreseen — everything happening suddenly compared to the “timing” that dictated the rhythm of previous generations up to the most recent ones, represented by young people still in their basic education phase, who, caught by surprise, will begin to feel the weight of time being flattened by the digital hands of AI. And those hands are still “digital,” since the first quantum computer running at room temperature is already becoming reality.
When AI is accelerated by quantum environments, the evolutionary dynamism — promoting frequent leaps of progress and new possibilities — will be driven beyond imagination, becoming routine and completely changing life as we think of it today.
Decisions will necessarily be faster, compelled by the circumstances of this dynamism, imposing the need to increase our learning capacity, driven by new times that will literally echo the refrain of Geraldo Vandré’s song (1968): “Quem sabe faz a hora, não espera acontecer” — “Those who know make the moment, they don’t wait for it to happen”* — even considering the political context in which the author released it.
Note: certain allusions are intentionally left open, as an invitation to readers who enjoy the exercise of discovering such subtleties for themselves.
We will have a market far more frenetic than today’s, accelerated by processes that once took any amount of time but can no longer compete with execution measured in seconds, powered by AI resources across all areas of human activity.
Certainly, the stock market will feel the impact of AI through index volatility, in the constant swapping of protagonists who drive commodities, now even more entangled in the webs of geopolitical and technological dependencies, continuously provoked by increasingly unstable climate conditions and by the philosophical and political incongruities that fuel wars.
The financial market will grow more nervous; spreads on medium- and long-term operations will become more costly, accelerated by global contextual unpredictability in the face of constant disputes among economic groups leading market niches — niches increasingly sustained by the politicization of economic activity through the “administrative hands” of governments, acting in defense of initiatives that no longer signify mere technological and economic advancement, but have become a basic matter of national security, currency reserves, and the ability to sustain their own volitions against ever more intrusive external interference, whether economic, military, or political.
Full democratic systems, not stratified in some way, will suffer the greatest impacts, risking their existence in current form, because the segments of the population least aware of these changes will shape election results — choosing candidates more concerned with polarizing radicalisms than with turning their attention to practical existential vocation through proposals aligned with our time.
It seems the people either do not perceive this, or they support and become complicit, or they fail to react by putting a stop to it.
Detachment degrades the democratic system and compromises our ability to compete, putting national sovereignty at risk beyond the formal borders of our maps, which increasingly have lines of demarcation more imaginary than effective.
The lack of perception dulls the urgency of change, making it slower, proportional to disinformation, because no one changes until they “see and feel on their own skin” the necessity. Change hurts, it is uncomfortable, and no one leaves their comfort zone except by the need for survival.
Democratic regimes urgently need reevaluation, as they will be at a disadvantage compared to stable dictatorial regimes that show economic success.
I make it clear that, although I have a democratic soul, from time to time everything needs revision so as not to decay into the pit of common suffering through complacency or lack of vision in keeping pace with the speed of change.
If you were used to the feeling that the “future” is something distant, that takes time to arrive — forget it! Now, through the hands of AI, the future is right there!
And will the people be able to keep up?
And doesn’t democracy and the consumer economy also depend on the people?
Our greatest hope for preserving the democratic state lies in education, since the destiny of a people rests on its decisions and conduct.
AI may promote the human being in the educational process — or undermine them. Accelerating individual development requires reevaluating the way we teach and learn.
Brazil has a good chance of success because it is emerging from the swamp of educational neglect.
Headlines like the one presented below should “go viral,” because the solution lies not only in quantity but also in the quality of human capacity to analyze information.
It is vital to learn how to use AI and its agents, provided they do not induce complacency, plagiarism, or laziness, but instead inspire the speed of learning through the efficiency of a new, more agile and objective form of education — saving time in search and elaboration so that more can be spent in inference and association.
The wrong way of using a tool does not condemn the tool, but its user.
Headline translation:
What is the quality of education in your city? Check the score of each one in the Ideb, the country’s main indicator (Brazil).
In 20 years, the number of municipalities with a score below 5 in Elementary School I dropped from 4,110 to 442; cities will receive special assistance from the Ministry of Education.
Brazil is advancing in elementary and high school education, but still has not met most of the 2021 Ideb targets.
Basic education depends on at least four fundamental points: health, access, the development of the capacity to reason, and the production of stimulus created by the advantages that information offers in its role as the fuel that feeds analytical ability.**
I am saddened by the panorama of our elections, so distant from real needs while dealing primarily with personal and partisan quarrels.
Such positions reflect the social poverty of focusing on what truly does not matter!
Wake up, Brazil!
It is time to rethink even part of our National Anthem, with all respect and affection:
...
Lying eternally in a splendid cradle,
To the sound of the sea and the light of the deep sky,
..
The desertification of Brazilian soil shows that this cradle may not be so eternally splendid without the necessary global measures.
It is necessary to leave behind the poetry of ideologies and face reality.
And for that, only one party is needed: **BRAZIL!**
Cooperation must overcome the diversity of visions.
It is worth remembering that our panorama is not exclusive, nor does it belong to a select club of few; on the contrary, our example resonates in many other democratic nations.
