As Albert Einstein said “Imagination is more important than knowledge”, and that is what this article is about, something I imagined, an idea so perfect that it haunted me from the moment it occurred to me.
One of the things that I love about computing are domains and web pages, that passion arose more than 20 years ago in the heat of the birth and rapid development of the Internet, I remember each and every one of the domains that I have bought as an individual and all the personal pages that I have been launching over the years.
Another of the things that I am most passionate about in Computer Science is a branch called “Artificial Intelligence”. Any person or organization that wants to publish any work focused on Artificial Intelligence on the Internet will be forced to use the ccTLD .ai top-level domain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.ai, which has become a standard for de facto from the English term (Artificial Intelligence), when in fact it is the code for the British Overseas Territory of Anguilla. This is so because we give full weight to the English language for all kinds of issues, something that is reflected in this article:
Artificial Intelligence, in Spanish
It is a question of initiative, in many aspects we have allowed ourselves to eat the ground, we are satisfied with things that others promote or impose. Being aware of what others are doing is fine, it is even essential, but we must not forget to innovate, in Spain and Europe we have plenty of potential, we should not use talent solely as exportable merchandise, we should think of our potential as a plant, a living organism that must be cared for and fed to make it grow and one day reap its fruits. Let us all put an end to the spirit of “Let them invent” in relation to scientific research and innovation, let us go from being the caboose to the locomotive, perhaps it may seem an impossible task, if we compare our technological resources against the great superpowers such as China, USA, … but it does not depend on the number of artificial neural networks that our resources allow us to create nor on their processing speed, it depends to a greater extent on how well the natural neural networks of the individuals that are part of the group are coordinated. Spanish and European swarm, I personally believe that the entity that becomes aware of this detail and organizes itself will be the one that reaps the best results.
It saddens me that, in the absence of ideas, and the will to investigate, innovate and cooperate, multinational corporations are the only ones capable of making the most of this valuable resource.
A symbolic but decisive step to avoid the predominance of English in science could be, for example, the possibility of creating .ia domains instead of .ai, it may seem insignificant, but it could be the spigot that lights the fuse of the European competitiveness, a way of differentiating from the prevailing current, a hallmark of its own.
Currently the ending .ia is not in use, but its regulation, like the rest of the ccTLDs, depends on ISO-3166, the international standard for country codes and codes for their subdivisions, published by the International Organization for Standardization.
I think that not only Spanish-speaking countries could benefit from the creation of this new code, other countries such as France, Portugal, Italy,… could become allies in this cause. It is a very complex cause because the rules that govern this standard are quite strict. To achieve this, it would be necessary to seek solid arguments, a lot of collaboration and resources, something that could be achieved with a great European coalition.
Personally I think that the ideal territory to receive this encoding could be Antikythera, a Greek island, where in 1901 the “Antikythera mechanism” was discovered among the remains of a shipwreck, an amazing artifact, considered by many to be the oldest analog computer on Earth. humanity with more than two millennia of antiquity.
This “romantic” idea would do much more justice to the term “Artificial Intelligence” and the .ia domain than the British Overseas Territory of Anguilla and would also highlight the importance of Europe’s rich history, the cradle of civilizations.
I have become so obsessed with this idea that I even sent it to a proposal forum of the European Union:
Promote the creation of “.ia” a new Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD)
At this point there are several options:
You got here by inertia 😒, you don’t give a damn about the globalization of culture or de facto standards, or ccTLD top level domains, you must think, “what a pain in the ass” or “this guy is missing some screw or two …”, have a nice day 🫡, sorry for the inconvenience.
Otherwise, I would appreciate it if you leave me your opinion in the comments below or better yet, vote on the idea in the forum above. 😍