DIGITAL LIFE

AI: the new nervous system of modern life

From laboratory curiosity to the invisible infrastructure of global routine: artificial intelligence already underpins everyday communication, decision-making, and learning. With billions of interactions per week, platforms like ChatGPT and Gemini are shaping habits, accelerating economies, and creating a new emotional relationship between humans and machines—one of trust, dependence, and collaboration.

Artificial intelligence has gone from being a technical experiment to quietly integrating the functioning of the modern world. From voice messages to music recommendations, it is present in every digital gesture. According to OpenAI, ChatGPT receives more than 18 billion messages per week, and the technology is already used by approximately 700 million people—almost 10% of the global adult population.

AI's advancement is happening on an unprecedented scale. In less than three years, ChatGPT has achieved a global penetration rate greater than that of historical technologies like electricity and the internet. Microsoft's AI for Good Lab estimates that 15% of the global workforce already uses AI tools—a figure that exceeds 50% in countries like Singapore and the United Arab Emirates.

According to Anthropic, usage remains more concentrated in developed economies—the United States, Canada, Israel, Australia, and Europe—but the fastest growth is occurring in emerging markets like Brazil, India, and Vietnam. In Brazil, for example, courts are already using AI systems to expedite judicial decisions.

Google claims that its AI functions in search engines and text editors have more than 2 billion monthly users, while Meta reports 1 billion monthly interactions with its intelligent assistant on WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook.

AI usage is strongly correlated with income level and GDP per capita. Rich countries concentrate most of the AI ​​infrastructure, but emerging economies are experiencing the fastest growth. This difference could, in the future, redefine the map of economic power. The Microsoft report points out that, although access is still unequal, the proportion of internet users is similar in rich and poor countries—indicating that the main obstacle is network access, not interest.

Far from replacing human labor, artificial intelligence has acted as a cognitive assistant, expanding people's capabilities. More than 70% of messages sent to ChatGPT are not related to work, but to personal, educational, or decision-making support activities.

The most common categories are practical guidance, information search, and writing, which account for 80% of interactions, according to OpenAI. In corporate environments, the most frequent use is for writing, editing, and data synthesis, rather than full automation.

For Ronnie Chatterji, chief economist at OpenAI, "people are using AI not to make decisions for them, but to make better decisions." The Anthropic study confirms this: most interactions occur collaboratively, with the human remaining in control.

The educational impact of AI is growing. About 10% of ChatGPT conversations involve tutoring, explanations, or study. The "guided study" mode was created specifically to stimulate reasoning, not just provide answers.

For Yulie Kwon Kim of Google Workspace, AI "helps people communicate better and improve their skills," making learning more accessible and work more efficient.

The popularization of AI has also transformed the emotional relationship with technology. A Financial Times survey highlights the phenomenon of "shadow adoption": employees using ChatGPT or Gemini at work without formal authorization. This reflects both trust in the tools and a lack of institutional integration.

Research from the MIT Media Lab warns of so-called "cognitive debt"—the tendency to over-rely on AI and reduce active learning. Still, experts like Nataliya Kosmyna advocate for a balance: "Use your brain to create, and AI to improve."

Who controls the new global infrastructure? Artificial intelligence is now an emotional and functional infrastructure—and also an economic one. Tech giants are expected to invest more than $300 billion in new AI projects by 2025, according to Microsoft and Anthropic. In the United States alone, the sector already accounts for 40% of GDP growth.

But this concentration raises questions about the distribution of benefits. If wealthier countries reap greater productivity gains, global inequality could increase.

Still, personal, non-work use of AI is growing faster than business use, suggesting that the impacts on human well-being, education, and creativity may be even more profound than those measured by the economy.

In less than three years, AI has gone from being a niche tool to becoming the emotional and cognitive infrastructure of the 21st century—a new nervous system for modern life.

Source: Infobae