Óscar López calls for an alliance with middle powers to advance towards “a third technological path and trustworthy AI” 

The Minister for Digital Transformation and the Civil Service took part in a conversation with Carissa Véliz, philosopher, University of Oxford professor and author of Privacy Is Power, during the 1st Global Digital Rights Forum, held in Barcelona. 

“Either we act together with the middle powers, or the Global South will become little more than a battery and a database used to increase the wealth of five powerful actors,” warned López. 

The minister argued that the debate on digital rights “is not a technological discussion, but a major political debate”. 

The Minister for Digital Transformation and the Civil Service, Óscar López, has called for an alliance among middle powers, describing them as “countries around the world that must play a role in shaping a third technological path and building trustworthy AI, which must define the future”. He made these remarks on Thursday in Barcelona during the 1st Global Digital Rights Forum, where he held a conversation with University of Oxford professor and author of Privacy Is Power, Carissa Véliz. Together, they explored the present and future of social media and Artificial Intelligence, particularly the need for governance at a global level. 

During the discussion, López stated that “the world cannot continue on life support after discovering that an AI system has identified vulnerabilities in the financial system”. “I am convinced that unless we act together with the middle powers, the Global South will become little more than a battery and a database serving to increase the fortunes of five powerful actors.” 

The minister argued that the debate surrounding digital rights “is not a technological debate, but a major political one”. “We are discussing sovereignty. We are here to debate democracy and rights. Should digital rights exist or not? Who should define and govern them?” he asked. In this regard, López stressed that “Spain is becoming a strong voice” in calling for the regulation of AI and social media platforms. 

The minister stated that the debate concerns “power concentrated in very few hands that is defining the future energy model, education, defence and data privacy”. “If this were not a political issue, if it were not about power, every Spanish user of a messaging platform would not have received a message from the owner of that platform attacking the President of the Government,” he explained. “I am here to defend a trustworthy model, one that does not put democracy, the ecological transition, the health of our children or national security at risk. This is not only about regulation — it is about much more than that,” he insisted. 

“Those of us working on the governance of AI models become more radicalised in our awareness that we are already behind the curve the more we learn,” López continued, arguing that this is “a profoundly civilisational issue”. Drawing a parallel with the 2008 financial crisis and how deregulation caused financial products to “spin out of control”, the minister called for action “before it is too late”. “I do not want a future in which, during inquiries into what happened with social media and AI, engineers appear saying that things also got out of hand for them,” he said, recalling that “banking regulation did not undermine competitiveness” and that “the same could happen with AI”. 

For this reason, he stressed that “there is much to be done” at both international and European level, while highlighting Spain’s progress through initiatives such as the Digital Rights Charter, the Digital Rights Observatory, legislation establishing a minimum age for the use of social media, and the promotion of the European AI Regulation, through which the Government succeeded in including a ban on systems enabling sexual deepfakes. “We are taking steps in both regulation and innovation. This is not just about imposing rules, but about investing in the creation of ethical tools and building not the fastest or cheapest AI model, but the most trustworthy one. Spain will fight on every front to ensure this happens,” he added. 

López also emphasised the importance of implementing “elements that enable this sovereignty”, recalling that the Government has allocated more than €30 billion to chip and semiconductor factories, leading companies specialising in understanding AI language models, and to “flooding” Spanish universities with AI, cybersecurity and data management chairs. 

He also pointed out that Spain is acting on other fronts, such as regulating the construction of data centres through a recently approved decree which “establishes sustainability criteria and combats speculation”. He further highlighted the country’s commitment to supercomputing, the injection of public capital into world-leading AI SMEs “to anchor them in Spain and prevent them from being absorbed by major technology companies”, and stated that Spain will host one of Europe’s first gigafactories. “We are aware of the risks and we are taking action. The direction and ambition are clear,” he asserted. 

In this regard, López recalled that the objective set by the President of the Government was “to achieve in digital transformation what we have achieved in the energy transition, where Spain is now a world leader in renewable energy and in building an industry whose energy model is exported to half the world.” 

The impact of predictive AI 

Philosopher Carissa Véliz, meanwhile, warned about the role of technological predictions in decision-making: “We obey predictions as though they were disguised orders, and instead of questioning them, we simply comply.” In this regard, she criticised the apocalyptic narratives promoted by certain figures within the technology sector, accusing them of “selling a vision of the future in which they themselves appear as saviours”. Véliz argued that the way AI has been designed “through machine learning means learning from the past, which is why it is so sexist and racist, but we also know that part of the future is not determined by the past”. 

The forum highlighted the urgent need to approach Artificial Intelligence from an ethical, political and social perspective, avoiding both techno-pessimism and naïve optimism. In the minister’s words, “we are aware of the risks and we are taking action”, while Véliz concluded by stressing the importance of being “on the right side of history, rather than asking yourself whether you are going to win or not”, ending her speech with a call to action: “If we are brave now, we can change course and build a better future”. 

Véliz agreed with Óscar López in arguing that “today we are not fighting a technological battle, but a battle over power”, and expressed surprise that, as a society, “we are handing over our data to the least trustworthy companies in the world”. 

The conversation between Óscar López and Carissa Véliz took place following the welcome address by Enrique Goñi, President of Fundación Hermes, who highlighted the significant effort made by the 150 organisations which, together with the 20 entities forming part of the Digital Rights Observatory, have brought three years of work to a close through the event held in Barcelona. 

“Our digital lives are non-transferable,” stated Goñi, referring to the crucial and changing moment currently facing society. “If we delegate them, we are delegating our freedom and civil rights. Technology can either be a wonderful Angora cat or a tiger capable of devouring us,” he explained. 

“What we are seeing at this Forum proves that we are capable of anything,” Enrique Goñi said optimistically. “The match is still open; it has not yet been played. Europe must take part, and it must do so from an ethical perspective and by promoting large-scale home-grown industry, without any inferiority complex.”