estrategIAEnglish
edition

155 essays · 2023–2026

Ideas to think with.

Explore the English archive: arguments, experiments and possible futures for AI in public life. Dates refer to the Spanish originals.

Issues 13, 65 and 117 had no main essay and are not included in this archive.

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155 essays

Issue 158
Government & Public Services

Three years of estrategIA: the time we are letting slip away

On estrategIA’s third anniversary, Fernando Nieto Lobato examines accelerating AI progress and the political preparation needed to protect rights and share its benefits.

Fernando Nieto Lobato9 min read Retrospective
Issue 157
AI in Practice

The environment and the decision

Ivan Sverdlick explains how Sustantiva is redesigning workflows around AI, shared knowledge and deliberate points for human judgement, beyond automating individual tasks.

Ivan Sverdlick9 min read Analysis
Issue 156
Futures, Safety & Human Agency

Fear of AI concentrates power too

An argument for independent AI safety oversight, proportionate controls and broad access, examining regulatory capture and the human costs of unjustified delay.

Fernando Nieto Lobato8 min read Analysis
Issue 155
Power, Sovereignty & Geopolitics

AI sovereignty: five conditions for the power to decide

Electricity, compute, oversight, people and capital: what countries need to turn a claim of AI sovereignty into the power to decide.

Fernando Nieto Lobato9 min read Analysis
Issue 154
AI in Practice

Astra: a new scale of intelligence and power

A historical account of GPT-6 Astra and an interactive municipal planning experiment, examining what better AI capabilities mean for public explanation and judgement.

Fernando Nieto Lobato8 min read Practical experiment
Issue 153
Government & Public Services

It would take gods to give laws to humans

Pablo Martín Diez reviews José Ignacio Latorre’s proposal for a social contract encompassing nature, humanity and AI, examining legitimacy and concentrated power.

Pablo Martín Diez5 min read Review & commentary
Issue 151
Democracy, Elections & Public Trust

The law everyone supported

A fictional public consultation explores how personalised explanations can make a policy accessible while hiding the common choices citizens need to debate.

Fernando Nieto Lobato6 min read Fiction
Issue 150
Democracy, Elections & Public Trust

The automated opposition

When AI makes political accusations cheap, a fictional MP discovers how the competition for attention can displace serious public scrutiny.

Fernando Nieto Lobato5 min read Fiction
Issue 149
Government & Public Services

The company that wasn't there

A story about an automated public-service contractor, and why a human signature means little without the authority to overrule the system.

Fernando Nieto Lobato6 min read Fiction
Issue 148
Government & Public Services

Zero compute

Summer fiction about allocating scarce public AI capacity during a heat emergency, revealing hidden dependencies and unequal local resilience.

Fernando Nieto Lobato6 min read Fiction
Issue 147
Government & Public Services

The carer who learnt to call

Summer fiction about an older woman, an AI care assistant and rebuilding human support without surrendering control of life at home.

Fernando Nieto Lobato6 min read Fiction
Issue 146
Government & Public Services

The minister’s memory

Summer fiction about an outgoing minister whose AI memory must be divided between institutional continuity and personal privacy.

Fernando Nieto Lobato5 min read Fiction
Issue 145
Government & Public Services

The Thursday mayor

Summer fiction set in 2032: a mayor whose administration runs smoothly with AI must choose between two legitimate but incompatible public needs.

Fernando Nieto Lobato6 min read Fiction
Issue 144
Government & Public Services

The final signature

The first summer historIA of 2026: a fictional council officer in 2032 confronts the difference between a recorded human signature and meaningful oversight.

Fernando Nieto Lobato7 min read Fiction
Issue 143
AI in Practice

Trying SillyTavern as a space for political debate with AI

A first-person SillyTavern experiment with five synthetic political profiles, exploring its value for preparing questions and its limits as social research.

Fernando Nieto Lobato13 min read Practical experiment
Issue 139
Government & Public Services

From tools to industries

Juan Segundo Hevia examines how AI companies move from general tools into industry workflows, and what this means for regulation and sovereignty.

Juan Segundo Hevia8 min read Analysis
Issue 138
Government & Public Services

Governing in the fog

How democratic institutions can plan under AI uncertainty through staged commitments, flexible structures and systems for detecting change.

Fernando Nieto Lobato8 min read Analysis
Issue 133
Futures, Safety & Human Agency

Three possible futures for artificial intelligence in 2030

Three alternative AI futures for 2030 — plateau, sustained ascent and rapid take-off — and why strategic preparation must work across all three.

Fernando Nieto Lobato6 min read Analysis
Issue 132
Work, Welfare & the Social Contract

AI is not taking our work away. It is freeing us from it.

If technology can separate income from employment, the political task is to share its gains—and the freedom they could make possible.

Fernando Nieto Lobato12 min read Opinion
Issue 130
Democracy, Elections & Public Trust

Artificial intelligence and electoral disinformation: lessons from Chile and Argentina for democratic governance in Latin America

Eight Fundación Botín programme participants examine AI-amplified electoral disinformation in Chile and Argentina and the institutional responses Latin America needs.

Martín Telleria; María Fernanda Pech Novelo; Steeven Johannes Flor Pio; Genesis Dejaneyra Cadenasso Correa; Maria Antônia de Medeiros Dantas Costa; Valentina Silva Schmidt; Katherine Lizeth Bernal Santos; Samuel José Vega Martínez6 min read Analysis
Issue 129
Government & Public Services

MUNICIP-IA: from using AI tools to governing change

Sofía García Morales reports from MUNICIP-IA on practical municipal adoption, institutional judgement, digital sovereignty and the political implications of AI.

Sofía García Morales7 min read Analysis
Issue 127
Power, Sovereignty & Geopolitics

Who leads AI? Twelve key players in the model race, 2026

A historical guide to twelve AI model developers and deployment players, their products, institutional significance and competing strategic priorities.

Fernando Nieto Lobato8 min read Analysis
Issue 123
Futures, Safety & Human Agency

AI's adolescence: when power arrives before policy

A political reading of Dario Amodei’s technological adolescence and Claude’s Constitution: institutional wisdom, oversight and the limits of corporate sovereignty.

Fernando Nieto Lobato5 min read Analysis
Issue 120
Government & Public Services

CES 2026 confirms a new phase: AI as ‘electricity’

A historical assessment of CES 2026: universal AI access, Nvidia's physical AI infrastructure, on-device assistants, autonomous agriculture and preventive care.

Fernando Nieto Lobato6 min read Analysis
Issue 112
Government & Public Services

The new role of digital advisers

Javier Battilana Urbieta considers how conversational AI can extend the tradition of advisers who help leaders reflect, decide and act.

Javier Battilana Urbieta6 min read Analysis
Issue 109
Learning & Human Capability

Physics in artificial intelligence

Luis Eduardo Paniagua Martín explores physics as a bridge between mathematical ideas, algorithms and hardware, with an illustrated explanation from the original newsletter.

Luis Eduardo Paniagua Martín7 min read Analysis
Issue 106
Government & Public Services

Governing with artificial intelligence

Ignacio Martín Granados explores where AI creates public value, the risks of action and inaction, and the conditions for trustworthy government adoption.

Ignacio Martín Granados6 min read Analysis
Issue 102
Democracy, Elections & Public Trust

Campaigns in the age of AI: global lessons from 2024

Ignacio Martín Granados examines a global study of AI use in the 2024 elections and its lessons for campaigns, public trust and democratic integrity.

Ignacio Martín Granados5 min read Analysis
Issue 096
Futures, Safety & Human Agency

The year of the silent tsunami

A Gemini 2.5 Pro story imagines a rapid AGI transition and the consequences of failing to prepare institutions and the social contract.

Fernando Nieto Lobato5 min read Fiction
Issue 094
Futures, Safety & Human Agency

The voice of the algorithm that learned to dream

A Grok 4 summer fable set in Mexico City in 2045 explores civic participation, empathy and an AI that learns from human stories.

Fernando Nieto Lobato4 min read Fiction
Issue 093
Futures, Safety & Human Agency

An AI's travel diary: summer 2025

A fictional AI travel diary, created with GPT-4.5, visits four places associated with the development of artificial intelligence.

Fernando Nieto Lobato5 min read Fiction
Issue 091
Futures, Safety & Human Agency

Distributed forecasting platforms and the future of AI

How collective forecasting can inform AI policy, and why probabilities require critical judgement rather than blind trust.

Fernando Nieto Lobato13 min read Analysis
Issue 078
Democracy, Elections & Public Trust

AI on official accounts: viral play, threat or distortion?

Martín Sosa Dirié examines AI imagery on official political accounts and asks whether viral reach enriches or trivialises public discourse.

Martín Sosa Dirié7 min read Analysis
Issue 062
Democracy, Elections & Public Trust

Operación Retuit: AI as a shield for Venezuelan journalism

César Batiz recounts how Venezuelan and Colombian journalists used AI avatars and media alliances to report under censorship and protect their colleagues.

César Batiz5 min read Analysis
Issue 061
AI in Practice

Five good AI tools with Black Friday discounts

The November 2024 archive of estrategIA's Black Friday selection: Pictory, Kling, Mimic PC, Freepik and Poe, with the original offers and disclosures preserved.

Fernando Nieto Lobato10 min read Review & commentary
Issue 060
Democracy, Elections & Public Trust

SocialAI: an ally for political communication

Carlos Guadián explores political role-play with SocialAI through simulated US election messages and debates over Mexico's judicial reform.

Carlos Guadián9 min read Practical experiment
Issue 058
Democracy, Elections & Public Trust

AI Steve and candidacies based on artificial intelligence

Fernando Domínguez Sardou examines AI Steve's parliamentary campaign and what generative AI could contribute to the relationship between citizens and their representatives.

Fernando Domínguez Sardou4 min read Analysis
Issue 056
Democracy, Elections & Public Trust

Humanity at its final frontier

Pablo Martín Diez examines Harari’s Nexus, digital empires and four principles for protecting democratic life in an age of AI.

Pablo Martín Diez4 min read Review & commentary
Issue 047
Futures, Safety & Human Agency

Stories of politics, government and AI in 2045 (7)

Grok 2 mini supplies the final summer story: an AI candidate faces a human activist who questions its promise to optimise collective happiness.

Fernando Nieto Lobato3 min read Fiction
Issue 046
Futures, Safety & Human Agency

Stories of politics, government and AI in 2045 (6)

An updated Gemini model tells the story of Perseo, an AI policy adviser whose impeccable calculations raise disturbing ethical questions.

Fernando Nieto Lobato2 min read Fiction
Issue 045
Futures, Safety & Human Agency

Stories of politics, government and AI in 2045 (5)

Created with Mistral Large 2, this story follows ATHENA, an AI cabinet member whose success provokes a political conspiracy.

Fernando Nieto Lobato3 min read Fiction
Issue 044
Futures, Safety & Human Agency

Stories of politics, government and AI in 2045 (4)

A fictional AI designed to advise governments becomes a political force in its own right, in a story created with Llama 3.1 405B.

Fernando Nieto Lobato2 min read Fiction
Issue 043
Futures, Safety & Human Agency

Stories of politics, government and AI in 2045 (3)

A summer satire created with Claude Sonnet 3.5: an AI campaign assistant detects one problem too many in a presidential debate.

Fernando Nieto Lobato2 min read Fiction
Issue 042
Futures, Safety & Human Agency

Stories of politics, government and AI in 2045 (2)

In this summer story created with Gemini 1.5 Pro, a bored programmer disrupts the speeches of an impeccably rational digital ruler.

Fernando Nieto Lobato2 min read Fiction
Issue 041
Futures, Safety & Human Agency

Stories of politics, government and AI in 2045

The summer fiction series begins with GPT-4o's story of Políticus-Prime, a humorous AI candidate facing a flamboyant human rival.

Fernando Nieto Lobato3 min read Fiction
Issue 022
Government & Public Services

Challenges and uses of AI in public affairs

Gustavo Fedi examines the distinction between generative and predictive AI, the challenges of measurement and six emerging applications in public affairs.

Gustavo Fedi4 min read Analysis
Issue 019
Learning & Human Capability

AI: our key ally in first-class training

Santiago Comadira describes ALEPH’s use of AI to build an immersive electoral training exercise and shares five lessons for educators.

Santiago Comadira3 min read Analysis
Issue 014
Futures, Safety & Human Agency

The rise of AI: key predictions for 2024

Five AI trends predicted at the start of 2024, plus the expected impact of AI on the US elections and public perceptions.

Fernando Nieto Lobato5 min read Analysis
Issue 012
AI in Practice

Discover 10 AI-related gift ideas for Christmas

The original Christmas 2023 selection of five AI-related books or series and five devices, with historical product descriptions and links.

Fernando Nieto Lobato9 min read Analysis
Issue 007
AI in Practice

AI agents: a new way of interacting with technology

Bill Gates’s vision of personal AI agents prompts an exploration of hypothetical applications in public services, participation, policy analysis and scrutiny.

Fernando Nieto Lobato3 min read Analysis