Josep Curto
Academic Director of the Master's Degree in Business Intelligence and Big Data at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC) and Adjunct Professor at IE Business School
Pedro Sánchez's announcement of the creation of a large foundational AI language model, trained specifically in Spanish and co-official languages, open source and transparent, and with the intention of incorporating Ibero-American countries, should be considered from several points of view.
On the one hand, it is good news, since the vast majority of foundational models have been created using datasets mostly in English. It is also relevant because it can serve as an example of a responsible artificial intelligence system. I mean, being the government the one pushing such creation, it must comply by default with the obligations for this type of systems as indicated in the EU AI Act and, on the other hand, they will surely take into account the rights of the author, publisher or licensee to exploit the reference sources which, as we know, have not taken into account some of the most relevant foundational models in the market.
On the other hand, there are many aspects that qualify this announcement. There are many unknowns in the announcement that are linked to its viability (who provides the budget, who carries out the project, how it will be delivered to generate value for society, who will do maintenance, how biases and other inefficiencies of these models will be controlled). Until we have more details to assess its future viability, it remains merely an announcement of good intentions.