On September 17 (2025), we attended an ADCV event together with our students from the Master’s Degree in Design Engineering at UPV. The event format, created and moderated by Rafael Armero, is the “Cuadrilátero.” Indeed, a cuadrilátero — like a boxing ring — with participants distributed in the corners, and the rest of the audience — who also join in after the main interventions — seated all around. A dynamic and enriching format.

This last Cuadrilátero was dedicated to the broad and challenging theme: “AI and Creativity.” Each corner of the ring featured professionals with much to say on the matter:

With this setup, we took good note of the reflections shared — some from different perspectives and with varying nuances.

What do we mean when we talk about Artificial Intelligence?

In reality, Artificial Intelligence is just another technological advance. Another machine. Just as in the era of the industrial revolution, when physical tasks began to be automated, in our era we are witnessing the automation of cognitive abilities and tasks. This entails some differences, of course… today’s machine, at least at first glance, is more democratized than the old machines that automated factories. And this is no small thing, because, as was said in the ring, “the issue is not the technology, but social organization. Who controls the tool? Who decides how it develops?”

Positioning ourselves with AI, with this tool for automating cognitive work, does present certain advantages. For example, the ability AI gives us to enhance accessibility for people with functional diversity in certain contexts was mentioned. And we add: the possibilities AI opens up for managing climate or energy-use and production data, and for providing responses that adapt production to demand, even predictively. In short, there are many possibilities with social utility. The problem, as was stated at the event, is that AI is being focused precisely on the least useful side for humanity.

The impacts of Artificial Intelligence

“Power is nothing without control” (Pirelli).

One of the problems raised in the Cuadrilátero was the way AI models have been built — particularly generative models, widely used in the creative industry. Some companies have taken public knowledge — without permission — and started to profit from it. “It’s like walking off with all the books from the library without paying the rental. That’s where the legal debate lies…”

In this regard, it was said that AI had played a certain card: entering the scene before specific regulation existed. In fact, this is what usually happens with technology and innovation: they materialize long before laws, by definition. Still, a nuance was added: “in reality, it is regulated, but the law is interpreted however they please…” operating in the realm of the ‘alegal’ (not explicitly legal nor illegal). Artificial Intelligence was originally regulated under the premise of certain exceptions: in academia and research — not in commerce — it was permitted. That is, up to a certain point, AI research was allowed, but not content creation. But… isn’t “research” what many AI-producing companies claim to be doing? “Everyone interprets the law to their liking.” On top of that, major developments in AI — even if later applied globally — take place in geographic regions where more advanced legislation has no jurisdiction.

Ethical and professional dilemmas of AI

For the creative sector, the following dilemma was raised: “In a creative process where you’ve used AI, do you consider the result to be yours, your authorship?” Questions about intellectual property and copyright raise many uncertainties in this respect.

On another note, there was discussion on how our very civilization will change because of this technology — likely worsening some of the crises we are already facing. Issues raised included job loss, Universal Basic Income, and hyper-productivity. But also questions like political decision-making through AI — citing Albania’s case with its virtual minister “Diella.” Debate also arose about whether using AI in creation could lead to mediocrity in creative work, and a homogenization of culture.

Sometimes people talk about Artificial Intelligence almost as if it were a person. There is a certain anthropomorphization — someone who thinks and says things. Yet in reality, it is an industrial system. A machine. A tool. And as such, it is produced in certain places and based on specific intentions. In this sense, AI also has environmental impacts, like any industrial system, which must be evaluated given its enormous scale. “AI is going to die of its own success,” someone said in the ring. “It works under the Jevons Paradox, and that cannot be sustained. The future is not in AI; it’s in Valencia’s DANA, in the recent energy blackout in Spain, and in other episodes we will have to stop.”

Designing a sustainable and beautiful world (also for Artificial Intelligence)

In the Cuadrilátero, people warned against victimhood and defeatism. We must avoid the message that a handful of powerful companies have all the control over what AI is and how it is used. First, because all parties share responsibility in this matter. And second, because there is always room for action: we must understand the rules, educate, and act so that AI is better designed. The example of Colombia was cited, where the Ministry decided to create a research plan on how to integrate AI into higher education: raising awareness, understanding its production and use, and its implications.

At Monnou, we are aligned with the notion that many of the keys — in innovation — lie in how we organize ourselves socially. More than in technology per se. That’s why, as always, we call for critical thinking about what and how we design and build. And above all: to imagine future scenarios, anticipate what may come for citizens, companies, and governments, and begin designing ways of living and economic models that ensure the well-being of all within the planet’s limits.

If these are issues that concern you and that you are trying to address through your work, here you have allies.