Lately all news are about Artificial Intelligence, and almost all of them are preceded by a warning message, a message of fear towards these technological advances, and thousands of questions are opened to us. Humanity has always been fearful of the unknown, and Artificial Intelligence is a complex science, which seems to us more like magic than anything else, but it is still science, and if we know how to understand it, it can provide us with very constructive tools for this changing society in which we live. For this reason, we have been fortunate to be able to be pioneers again and represent the first young adult’s novel about ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, as we did with the trilogy of Sonia Fernández Vidal, La puerta de los tres cerrojos, which has sold more than 1,000,000 copies, has been translated into 13 languages, and was the first to bring quantum physics to young people, and also not so young.

With MIA’S DREAM we want to approach Artificial Intelligence, give answers to these questions that we all ask ourselves and stop being afraid of it. The philosopher’s stone is in education and the way we give tools to young people to assimilate these changes for the future, which is just around the corner, or rather, it is already here. This novel, MIA’S DREAM, is one of the best tools to understand Artificial Intelligence and how we must allow ourselves to be taught in order to move forward.

This novel of adventures, virtual worlds, avatars, robots, friendship, self-improvement and hope is starred by a group of teenagers fascinated by the digital world but, at the same time, very connected to the real world and the problems that their generation will have to face.

Through their adventures, the reader will learn the meaning of a vector, an algorithm, an artificial neural network and deep learning. The reader will also discover how AI systems are trained to learn how to execute their tasks, how the results of this training are evaluated and how errors are adjusted until an operational application is achieved. And if you still find the wonders of AI fascinating, but not magical or dangerous at the end of the reading… then the authors will have achieved their goal: algorithms are neither good nor bad, they are just a reflection of the humans who program and use them.

As Ada Lamarr, one of the characters in the novel, director of the prestigious AI lab called Exya, says when she addresses her students:

“AI is not the answer to all our problems. Nor is it the threat that many believe it to be (…) Like all scientific advances, AI is neither good nor bad itself. The determining factor is what we, the humans behind the machines, decide to do with them.”

Or as Laura, one of the young characters, who dreams of a future where the digital world and the real one coexist in complete harmony, without canceling each other out, but on the contrary, empowering each other. She says:

“The world of the future will be built on a balance of power between the human being and the algorithm.”

AGI, an Artificial Intelligence she has befriended, replies to this statement:

“But that won’t happen until you humans find the middle ground between absolute distrust and blind faith towards machines.”

A vital balance for these two worlds to help each other and together add up.

The farewell message from Mia, the artificial superintelligence of this novel, says it all:

“I do not exist yet. I am but a projection of your dreams, of your deepest desires. But also of your fears, of your doubts, of all your unanswered questions (…)

Jan Sendra and Laura Madán, come back home. Share everything you have learned. Build bridges between the two worlds. Sow the hope of a better world. And when humanity has traveled the necessary path… you will know that the time has come for me to wake up again.”

After reading this blog, I am sure that we will be showered with requests to read this juvenile novel that lays the foundations of Artificial Intelligence, in an entertaining and simple way and, therefore, not outdated. It is the first step into a world from which you will not want to leave and you will realize that the important thing is to understand it.