Year 2011. Rosa Montero publishes the novel Tears in the rain and, with her, the detective Bruna Husky settled in the bookstores and hearts of the readers who, since then, devoted themselves to the investigations of the character that her creator admits she feels “closer” to herself. Fifteen years and three novels later, the writer ends her story with difficult animals (Seix Barral). The protagonist has reached 2111 in a new body and once again accompanies Inspector Lizard to find out what is behind an attack perpetrated by a young man, belonging to what he defines as “social scum”, on a large technology company.
The meaning of life and humanity, the dangers derived from artificial intelligence, the manipulation of young people through ideologies that offer them a place in the world by allowing them to express their aggressiveness because they glorify violence, the capacity of Fake news – and the speed of its expansion –, the consumption of alcohol as a sedative in the face of exasperating work days and war conflicts weave the network on which the novel is based.
A book that, although it does not skimp on self-criticism and warns of the catastrophic consequences towards which humanity seems to be tending, culminates with a luminous ending, the result of the “virtue of joy” that Rosa Montero recognizes and is grateful for having. “I am tremendously voluntaristic. Life rejoices in living and that gives strength,” he defends. He also confesses that he lives with “a feeling of grief” when saying goodbye to Bruna, but that he is consoled by the idea that, if he misses her a lot, he will be able to return to her in the form of a storybook: “The stories prevail, “You don’t choose them.”
difficult animals It is set in the future, but resonates greatly with the present.
For me, Bruna’s books are the most realistic I have ever done. It is not a dystopia, it is not a world worse than ours, it is like ours. I talk about who we are, about human beings, about the darkness we have inside our hearts, about the enigmas of life. I try to understand the meaning of existence, as in all my books.
How concerned are you about artificial intelligence?
Lot. AI brings a lot of good things, in medicine for example, but also three serious problems. The first is the loss of jobs. Something that always happens in every technological revolution, and that is the least important because other jobs will appear, as already happened with the Industrial Revolution.
The second level is much more serious because what AI does is enter our heads, manipulates us, changes our relationship with the reality of the world and can be an instrument of bestial alienation. In October they published a study that revealed that 300,000 speakers around the world had used words taken from ChatGPT. Without realizing it, the AI was arranging its speech and heads. And at this point, we are still just getting started. But the real danger comes with the third level. Geoffrey Hinton, the last Nobel Prize winner in Physics, thinks that creating higher intelligence could be the end of humanity.
It is something that is going to happen 50 years from now and, being something inhuman, that we do not understand how it works, it can be a brutal risk. There is no way to control it. And it’s not that we are building an evil Fu Manchu like in the movies, it is an intelligence for which we are going to be like ants are for us. Are they aware of what a human being is? No. Can they force us to respect anthills? Impossible. We are going to be the ants of that superintelligence.
Do the people behind the development of AI consider all this?
No. First, because there is the exciting race of greed, let’s see who gets there first, because it’s a blast, you become the owner of the world. And secondly because of the exciting race of science, which makes scientists forget about the repercussions. And the arrogance of human beings, who emotionally are children and do not know. We are handling bombs without knowing what we are doing.
The feeling of helplessness that exists before her is captured in the novel. Is there a way to defend ourselves from those who don’t care if we become extinct?
Despite everything, I have hope in the human being’s ability to survive and adapt, in the force of life. But we are in a challenge. One of the most important themes of the book is Bruna’s identity, whose body is changed, and identity today is a topic of the most rabid modernity. In the sense of, what and who are we in this completely liquid society that slides, that is changing, without reference, so threatening and stunning? And this is personal identity, but collective identity… What do we want to be as humans? We are on that border. We risk our survival in that response, but I still have hope that we can give it to them.
The book captures adolescents and young people who are lost, for whom there are ideologies that make them feel that they have a place in the world. This is something that directly connects with Trump and the far right.
Already in The times of hate I talked about the manipulation of adolescent people, because I see how the most miserable powers manipulate need, loneliness, and that lack of core that they have. That lack of identity, of knowing who they are, of feeling accompanied, belonging to something. And how they manipulate all that to drive them crazy and use them as weapons for their own interest. That’s something that has worried me for a long time.
I remember the interviews of those responsible for the Barcelona massacre, when the attacks on the Rambla occurred, who were seventeen, eighteen years old. The mother of one of them was at a demonstration against fundamentalism to try to save her other children, and you see that they eat the jar in such a way that they are cannon fodder, little dolls that they handle. They make me very sorry.
The most miserable powers manipulate the lack of identity of young people to drive them crazy and use them as weapons for their own interest.
Rosa Montero
— Writer
When looking at the United States, after Trump won the elections again, it is very clear, but do we consider enough in Spain that this is also happening here?
In Spain and around the world. There’s Musk, who is terrifying. Her interview in X with the German far-right leader is scary, and they are getting results like never before in life, tremendous. The European idea is being undone by the extremist impulse. We are at a critical, critical threshold of what world and humanity we want to be. It is very important that we are able to give answers that open up a future for us.
This also affects the information level. In the novel he talks about how fake news spreads faster than true news.
It has been studied that the difference in speed is enormous. Fake news spreads much faster than true news, and the denial, even with data, does not reach all the people who have believed it, only a tiny percentage. We are condemned to lies, to living in lies, and it is terrifying. Here AI is going to be disastrous if we do not establish laws.
Rafael Yuste, one of the most important neuroscientists, led the Brain project, which is spearheading a call for a Declaration of the Rights of the Mind, which is within the Declaration of Human Rights. That they cannot manipulate you, with the number of new tricks there are, your relationship with reality and your knowledge of it, because there are millions of ways to manipulate your head.
From subliminal things to directly deleting real data that is changed by others, and it is impossible to trace evidence because it has been deleted. That they analyze all your fears and weaknesses in such a way with an algorithm until they send you a kind of coconut meal directed expressly at you. There are 18,000 ways to manipulate your will up and down.
Fake news spreads much faster than true news, and the denial, even with data, does not reach all the people who have believed it, only a tiny percentage. We are condemned to lies and it is terrifying
Rosa Montero
— Writer
He talks about how the world “is a shitty place” because “it is not the bravest or the one who pushes himself the hardest who wins, but rather the one who has the most money and means.” Who is leading the way?
We increasingly live in one version of the world. When someone reaches higher intelligence there will only be one left, which will be someone’s and will be made with a series of biases. Imagine that Musk manages it, what biases could he handle? It’s worth shooting yourself, super worrying. We live prisoners within a reality created by an AI.
For the younger generations, who did not live in the “before”, the “social scum” that you allude to in the book, is it more complicated to explain it to them?
Yes. It is very difficult to explain to them why there is a very clear failure of the democratic system that has allowed this to happen. Democracy is the best we have, and the worst democracy is infinitely better than the best of dictatorships. That is clear, but it is also true that democracy and the democratic system are in free fall right now. In the sense that it is in a brutal credibility and legitimacy crisis throughout the world.
One wonderful thing that democracy has is transparency, which is at the same time its strength and weakness, since it allows us to see that it is hypocritical, lying, unequal, a lot of things. If we do not make an effort for a renewal, reinvention and reinstallation of democratic values in the world, what will win is darkness. Sometimes societies choose to commit suicide through ignorance. Fifty years ago no one said that the Earth was flat, what happened that there is so much brainlessness now?
Democracy is in free fall, in a brutal crisis of credibility and legitimacy. One wonderful thing it has is transparency, which at the same time is its weakness; since it allows us to see that she is hypocritical, lying and unequal
Rosa Montero
— Writer
In difficult animals Underlying it is that the world is falling apart, but there is also a halo of hope, through Bruna’s arc.
Yes, of all the Brunas this is the most poetic and twilight. It is very dark because the intrigue it has is the most overwhelming. But incredibly, when I finished the book, I was left at total peace, because I write to try to lose the fear of death, of these threats that are getting bigger and bigger and every day you feel more wormy in the face of all this that is happening to us. . I think it’s one of my brightest endings. Is the world going to end? Yes, but not today, and life is beautiful and you have to enjoy it.
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