Last Tuesday (3rd), the Humanitas360 Institute held the 9th edition of the Difficult Conversations series, themed “Impacts of AI on (Your) Work and (Our) Election.” Moderated by anthropologist Juliano Spyer, the event brought together at the CIVI-CO auditorium, in São Paulo, AI-specialized journalist Pedro Burgos, philosopher and academic director of SP Tech’s MBA in AI & Business Anna Flávia Ribeiro, and neuroscientist and partner at Instituto Locomotiva and WeMind Álvaro Machado Dias. On the agenda: the discomfort and uncertainties sparked by artificial intelligence — a technology already reshaping the job market and the electoral process, even as most people have little understanding of how this is happening or what consequences it may bring.
While Pedro Burgos cautioned against the trap of overestimating the short-term impact of new technologies while underestimating their long-term effects, Anna Flávia Ribeiro drew attention to “political perception engineering,” noting that 2026 may not yet be decided by AI — but that 2032 could be a different story. Álvaro Machado Dias, in turn, challenged the notion that work defines the human essence, arguing that the fear of an existential void brought on by automation only makes sense for those who define themselves exclusively by their professional occupation.
The event was streamed live on the H360 YouTube channel, where the full recording remains available. Watch it here:
