The Spain Report

14/03/2024

Pausing subscriptions again + AI

Hi, quick update, am well inside the AI rabbit hole or whirlwind at this point, Spain has taken a back seat, as you’ve seen, so have paused subscriptions again. The last I looked, there was another anti-heroic corrupt politician on TV insisting that they hadn’t done it. Only 24 hours in a day, 7 days a week for everyone, right?

Seems like an actual full-on paradigm shift to me for all sorts of areas of life and diving deep has felt like the in-depth reporting on the Catalan separatist trial or the first year of the pandemic. Intense. Everybody should be paying attention. AI is going to affect almost all businesses and jobs in the next 1-5 years. The changes will be enormous. At the very least, you should be thinking about it as the Internet in the 1990s and arguments could be made for Industrial Revolution or Enlightenment level change.

And not only is it a grand strategic, very-long term shift in the playing field for every business on the planet, in how the game is now going to be played, but that new game itself appears to be changing every week because the top-level global players inventing the new rules are themselves in a ferociuos fight to win global attention and new user habits.

This week’s most mind-blowing thing, although it’s only Thursday: they are building real-life C3PO. They have just put GPT inside a humanoid robot: https://twitter.com/Figure_robot/status/1767913661253984474

Already doing very interesting stuff for some new clients and their projects, so if you want to talk about that, just reach out with an email or a message. It’s hard to think through how to apply it to actual businesses in each case. AI is not going to do it all for us just yet. Am also preparing some slides and info and examples from the last few months’ learnings.

Thanks for reading and I hope you're well, wherever you are are in the world. You can follow along with the AI stuff on my personal Facebook here: Matthew Bennett.

Matthew

15/01/2024

🇪🇸 SPAIN NOTES, Jan 15: energy policy + Catalonia + nationalisms + pellets + party conferences

A Complex, Global 21st Century 1/ Chinese AI chat bots are already censoring ideological questions. 2/ In the US, the Iowa caucuses, the first act in the 2024 presidential election, happen today. The Republicans go first: Trump is way out in front. A Changing Spain

14/01/2024

WEEKLY ANALYSIS: Two Kings' Speeches 2023

Charles III delivered a short Christmas message about Christmas values. Felipe VI gave a 1,500 word political lecture with a Christmas tree in the background.

Charles III delivered a short Christmas message about Christmas values. Felipe VI gave a 1,500 word political lecture with a Christmas tree in the background.

12/01/2024

SPAIN NOTES, Jan 12: immigration, identity and power with Catalan separatists

A Complex, Global 21st Century 1/ Israel defended itself against the South African accusation of genocide in Gaza at the ICJ in the Hague, which was, their lawyers said, a “profoundly distorted and factual legal picture” and that Israel only sought to defend itself.

11/01/2024

QUICK TAKE: What will Catalan separatists do with immigration policy?

Sánchez has agreed to transfer immigration policy to Catalonia because Puigdemont’s party, Junts, demanded he do so at the last minute for their seven MPs in Madrid to support his new ecomomic measures. They abstained and the bill passed, just. El Mundo reports this morning that they did the deal...

11/01/2024

SPAIN NOTES, Jan 11: politicians and the pellets + immigration policy to Catalonia

A Complex, Global 21st Century 1/ South Africa argued its petition for an ICC injunction against Israel on the question of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, relating to a breach of Articles 2a, 2b, 2c and 2d of the genocide convention: killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or men...

10/01/2024

QUICK TAKE: plastic pellet pollution & politics

26 tonnes of tiny little plastic balls are washing up on Spain's northern coast.

26 tonnes of tiny little plastic balls are washing up on Spain's northern coast.

10/01/2024

SPAIN NOTES, Jan 10: plastic pellets + problems with Junts already

A Complex, Global 21st Century 1/ AI image manipulation can now fill in miniscule details on images of historical events….that were never really there. 2/ The SEC posted it had accepted all the Bitcoin ETFs…then SEC Chairman Gary Gensler said not, the account had been hacked…which X

09/01/2024

🇪🇸 SPAIN NOTES, Jan 9: Plastic pellets + Grifols + Vox + Space Command + Kosovo passports

Ok, back in Spain now after the Christmas break. Let’s go. A changing Spain in a complex, global 21st Century. Grab your paid subscription here. A Complex, Global 21st Century 1/ A frightening video of Italian fascists saluting in Rome….in 2024. 2/ Open AI

04/01/2024

SPAIN NOTES, Jan 4: Vox + PP + outlawing separatists + migrants + new political party

A Complex, Global 21st Century 1/ Here is South Africa’s genocide allegation against Israel in Gaza. 2/ Names on the infamous Epstein list began to be released. They included Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew, Stephen Hawking, Michael Jackson, the magician David Copperfield or Harvard Law Professor Alan...

03/01/2024

SPAIN NOTES, Jan 3: the Sánchez doll

Hate speech, populist politicians and democracy in 2024.

Hate speech, populist politicians and democracy in 2024.

03/01/2024

AI image generation is good enough to use for article header images that illustrate the concepts in articles wonderfully.

1. New York Times vs. Open AI
2. An American dictator
3. New Year's hanging of a political effigy
4. Spain in a chaotic global world

03/01/2024

QUICK TAKE: New York Times vs. OpenAI

Spanish media companies recently sued Meta for unfair advertising competition.

https://thespainreport.substack.com/p/quick-take-new-york-times-vs-openai

02/01/2024

🇪🇸🇺🇸QUICK TAKE: an American Franco?

US 2024 kicks off with a hard-right Spanish twist.

https://thespainreport.substack.com/p/quick-take-an-american-franco

31/12/2023

Happy New Year to you all. I hope 2024 is better for you than 2023 in the ways that you wish it to be so.

🥳🥳🎉🎉🍾🍾🥂🥂

29/12/2023

PREMIUM INSIDER: December letter

Global media + AI + X/Grok + Spain + US 2024 + Israel-Gaza + Journalism

Right, let’s do something a bit new and get organised for 2024, which starts in…two days. 2023 happened fast. PREMIUM INSIDER will be, as the name suggests, just for you as a paying subscriber to The Spain Report, an exculsive monthly mind dump of my inner thoughts about what’s going on with the news here nationally or global things I think are interesting or the state of media and journalism. This is the first one. Will fit into the rest like this:

- Spain Notes: daily during the week
- Quick Takes: daily during the week
- Weekly Analysis (Subscribers): a bit of a longer read on Sundays
- Premium Insider (Subscribers): once a month for subscribers
- State of Spain (Subscriber Pro): quarterly letter + call with Matthew

So lots of free stuff for free readers during the week, and more regular premium stuff for paying subscribers: a Weekly Analysis on a news topic, a monthly Premium Insider, and will also do a quarterly State of Spain letter, slides and conference call as a kind of super subscriber thing, a full revision every three months of where the country is up to with politics, economy, law, world, society, culture, trends and all the rest. Data, graphs, etc. The most in-depth analytical version of The Spain Report. So grab that extra option if it works for you.

That will all mix in nicely with the different news topics and events and trips.

Spain's election year in 2023 now rolls into the US presidential and European elections in 2024, politically and ideologically. And there's a regional election in Galicia set for February, as a first test, then Basque elections at some point and also maybe Catalan elections. Galicia and the Basque Country went at the same time last time, just after the first bit of the pandemic, and new Catalan elections would be explosive with the amnesty deal still in the air as Sánchez now tries to get it through parliament for Puigdemont. If he comes back and if he manages not to go to jail, would he run for regional first minister under the laws of the still oppressor sate (from his perspective)?

READ FULL:
https://thespainreport.substack.com/p/premium-insider-december-letter

29/12/2023

Meta seems to be doing something interesting with FB + IG + Threads, so we'll see where that goes in 2024, for those of you who like those places, will post notes and things to the pages. Follow me, comment, etc. here:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thespainreport/
Threads: https://www.threads.net/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/thespainreport

Matthew Bennett. Journalist in Spain. Independent. 100% readers. Guarantee this reporting: https://w

29/12/2023

Spain Notes, Dec 29: AI + Spain nuclear phase out + Bildu governs Pamplona + Franco, again

(Image below from DALL-E 3: “Spain in the world, intense, power, global, chaotic”)

A Complex, Global 21st Century

1/ The NYT is suing Open AI (Chat GPT) and Microsoft for using its copyrighted content: “Millions of articles from The New York Times were used to train chatbots that now compete with it”. (Story, court document)

2/ There are some good first takes on where it all might go on Twitter.

A Changing Spain

3/ Reuters: Spain confirms nuclear power phase-out, extends renewable projects deadlines.

4/ Sánchez went on a trip to…Iraq. In early morning (Spain time) statements, no questions, with the Iraqui PM, he said he supported an immediate, permanent ceasefire and a two-state solution to the Israel-Gaza conflict.

5/ Global alt-right influencer Jack Posobiec, with 2 million followers on X, published a new podcast episode: “EVERYTHING THEY TOLD YOU ABOUT THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR WAS A LIE FRANCO SAVED SPAIN AND FOUGHT FOR CHRIST”.

The worldview of Vox and the new global radical right in their own words

6/ Bildu, the left-wing Basque party associated with ETA, is back in charge of Pamplona City Hall, (Navarra) after the socialists voted in favour during a controversial confidence vote against the right.

7/ Belarra (Podemos): “The social majority is back in progressive government in Iruña [Basque name for Pamplona]”.

8/ Vox: “Infamy is committed in Pamplona. Pedro Sánchez hands the city to the heirs of ETA”.

9/ El País: “The Socialist Party needs to explain its deal with the radical Basque separatist coalition”.

10/ El Mundo: “What happened yesterday was not only the complete political legitimation of Bildu by the PSOE, but a change in the essence of the PSOE itself, a moral dissent against everything socialism had defended and fought for for decades in the Basque Country and a Navarra, ravaged by terrorism”.

11/ ABC: “Sánchez breaks his word again and allows the Socialist Party to hand over the mayor’s office in Pamplona to Basque radicals, contrary to what he promised before the July general election”.

12/ Might we see the implosion of Spain's alt-right party Vox in 2024 if Ortega-Smith challenges Abascal for the leadership? In that political subculture, such a challenge to the alpha male will be seen as even more disloyal than usual, a betrayal, and prove extremely divisive.

New York Times: “Through Microsoft’s Bing Chat (recently rebranded as “Copilot”) and OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Defendants seek to free-ride on The Times’s massive investment in its journalism by using it to build substitutive products without permission or payment”.

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