Enrique Fernández Nieto, son of a truck driver from the Sevillian town of Los Palacios, was very good at mathematics since he was little. His first vocation was to be a civil engineer, but a Mathematics teacher he had at COU made him change his mind. This Sevillian mathematician, professor and researcher at the University of Seville, works on an international project that tries to predict earthquakes and tsunamis. -Have you always liked mathematics? -I remember that when I was 12 years old, at the Book Fair of my town, my father wanted to give me a book and I chose a mathematics encyclopedia. I still have it saved and it’s been 36 years. Then, at COU, I had a Mathematics teacher who made me love it so much that I discarded my first option, which was to study Civil Engineering. -I guess he has never regretted it…-Never. I had a very good grade in Selectivity and could access any engineering. When I chose Mathematics, the cut-off mark for that course was very low, I think it was a 5. Now studying Mathematics at the University of Seville is reserved for the best Selectivity grades. -Yes, it has changed a lot. -Did mathematicians have as many job opportunities then as they do now? -Maybe not as many but I remember that in my case I had several job offers before finishing my degree. I did not accept any because my dream was research and I had decided to stay at the University of Seville. But other colleagues accepted them and they are doing very well in private companies. -Why is the professional profile of a mathematician valued so much in private companies? -Beyond the rise of the Internet or computer science, which have a lot of mathematics, I think that the ability of mathematicians to analyze and solve problems is valued. We are considered like this.-They say that many mathematicians do not know how to do accounts well. Is this your case? -Yes, absolutely. I remember that in college I failed an Algebra exam because I said 7×7 was 21. From that error onwards, all the operations I did with that number went wrong. -Is there a lot of mathematics behind artificial intelligence? -Yes. In fact, I have several colleagues in my department who are experts in Artificial Intelligence. -And how far do you think we can go? -I don’t know, but I’m worried about how fast things are moving. This must be stopped because many abuses are already being committed with AI. There are criminal uses, image manipulation and voice spoofing. -Can text made with ChatGPT be disguised? -No, there are algorithms that detect it.
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