I have to admit, reading about the latest warnings over artificial intelligence while sitting at my computer with a ChatGPT window open wasn’t ideal for the morning coffee.
While preparing for the fifth Atlántico Hoy Awards for Best Business Initiatives 2026, I came across comments from UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk warning about the potential threat AI poses to human rights.
And then I remembered the conversation we’d had just days earlier in the Atlántico Hoy office about an OpenAI AI reportedly escaping its secure testing environment and hacking into Hugging Face’s servers.
Lovely.
So, naturally, a few hours later I found myself on stage presenting an awards ceremony alongside an AI.
Meet Atlantis
Host Dani Calero was joined by Atlantis Innovación Pérez, the slightly eccentric AI who has been having a playful running battle with Dani since they first met at another awards event in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.
This time Atlantis had brought a little helper with him.
A small robot that looked like something between C-3PO and one of those androids you see serving sushi in Japanese restaurants.
Thankfully, the evening remained remarkably uneventful from a technological takeover point of view.
The robot didn’t start a fire, take anyone hostage or attempt to hack the Iberostar Grand Mencey.
There was one small problem, though.
During the presentation of an award, the robot’s doors got stuck. A technician was called in, a reboot was required and Dani calmly kept things moving while the problem was sorted.
Nothing dramatic. Nothing dangerous. Just technology doing what technology occasionally does.
People still matter
As entertaining as Atlantis was, the wider discussion around AI is harder to laugh off.
There are some very serious questions about where artificial intelligence is heading and what it means for jobs, privacy, human rights and society more generally.
Personally, I hope we don’t end up losing sight of the people behind all this progress.
The Canary Islands’ economy, after all, is built around people, ideas, businesses and talent.
Three comments from the gala particularly caught my attention.
José Manuel Bermúdez, Mayor of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, spoke about the importance of the “family intelligence” behind the Canary Islands’ economy.
Rosa Dávila, President of the Cabildo de Tenerife, highlighted the island’s position in the technology sector, saying that Tenerife generates 7 out of every 10 jobs in the field.
And Fernando Clavijo, President of the Canary Islands Government, had his own take on the robot’s little technical problem.
As he put it, AI will keep going even if we have to turn it off and on again, as we’ve always done. He also praised the importance of having serious, committed media that understand the Canary Islands.
Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater
I’m certainly not against AI.
Quite the opposite. Used properly, it can be an incredibly useful tool and there are some genuinely impressive things happening already.
But there is a difference between using technology to improve what humans can do and allowing technology to become the story itself.
The Canary Islands already has a limited pool of human talent and experience. That’s something worth protecting and developing, rather than allowing the excitement, or fear, around AI to overshadow it.
So let’s enjoy Atlantis while we can.
Let the robots occasionally get their doors stuck.
And let’s keep using AI to make life and business better without forgetting that the people building, creating and making decisions are still the important bit.
At least until the next software update.