European editors debate in Formentor about “the twilight of collective intelligence” in the face of digitalization

The editors gathered at the II European Editors’ Colloquium, which is being held in Formentor, have warned about the “twilight of collective intelligence” and have called to defend the value of the book and the work of the editor against the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and digitalization in education.

“To debate the twilight of collective intelligence, here is a brief account of what was said by European publishers in the time of AI,” said editor Claudia Casanova (founder of the Ático de los Libros publishing house), who offered attendees the conclusions of the meeting, after two days of debate held between November 1 and 2.

On Monday, November 2, the senior fiction editor of the Hanser publishing house (Germany), Piero Salabè, focused on the challenge that AI represents in the book ecosystem, starting from the premise formulated by Gonçalo M. Tavares (winner of the Formentor Prize 2026) about “writing while falling.”

Thus, he has analyzed the “mediating” role of the editorial figure in the face of technology, asking whether in the digital horizon “it is conceivable that authors do not have flesh and blood people as their first allies, but very intelligent machines, always available and friendly.”

At this point, Salabè has described AI as a “stochastic parrot, capable only of combining pre-existing elements in which it has been trained, based on probability, without being able to create anything unprecedented.” In his opinion, it is a machine that focuses on language while “literature belongs to the word.”

However, he has stated that AI “is a lost battle for both the writer and the editor since they carry out their work mechanically, without adding spirit or originality” but he has expressed hope with the use of the algorithm “to separate the wheat from the chaff” and revalue the creative work since “the machine lacks what is fundamental: the vital context.” “Without consciousness and without the free will that machines lack, art does not exist,” he added.

Meanwhile, the editor of Znak Literanova, Dominika Kardás, has revealed the keys that allow a literary work to cross borders and connect with all types of readers. “Books are mirrors when they show us people similar to us, situations we know or feelings, and they are windows when they open unknown worlds to us,” argued Kardás, for whom “a story does not need to deal with big historical or political themes to cross borders; sometimes it is enough to talk about the small things that are shared.”

“Translated literature not only allows us to know others and recognize ourselves in them. It can also change the way we see ourselves. And perhaps this is also one of the most beautiful parts of our work as editors: we do not limit ourselves to carrying books from one country to another. In a world that tends to keep us locked in areas where everything seems familiar and known, we invent new relationships between stories and their readers,” he argued.

For her part, the founder of the Förlaget publishing house (Finland), Sophia Jansson, has warned about the “disaster” represented by the loss of reading comprehension in students at a European level, a deterioration that is reflected in the latest results of the PISA report and that is “even more disturbing” within linguistic minorities, such as Swedish speakers in Finland, who represent 4.5% of the total population.

On this point, she defended the need to “preserve” publications in minority languages ​​to protect cultural identity against the economic criteria of the publishing industry, and recalled the origins of the Förlaget publishing house in order to preserve the work of Tove Jansson, whose niece she is.

“Publishing in Swedish in Finland is not economically viable, but for us it was not just about money or books; it was about keeping the identity of our culture alive and ensuring that authors had options,” said Jansson, detailing that they have published nearly 420 titles in a decade and have won around 70 Nordic literary awards.

In addition, he has warned that phenomena such as digitalization, the use of social networks and the implementation of AI can “accelerate social polarization”, which is why he has appealed to promote the pleasure of reading from childhood through high-quality content.

The meeting also included the director of the Restoration Department of the Vatican Apostolic Library (Vatican City), Ángela Núñez-Gaitán, who focused on the materiality of ancient texts, revealing that she feels “a little strange, out of place” in front of the new books.

Thus, he has emphasized the relevance of the book to technology. “The reader loves the physical part of books, the emotion of a first date with a new book, its covers, its smell, the feel of its pages, its handling,” he recalled.

Furthermore, he has defended the existence of a duality in the written work, stating that “the book consists of body and soul; the soul would be the text, the ideas it transports and generates, while the body is the physical matter, the vehicle of transmission.”

RECOVER THE “ESSENCE” OF THE EDITOR IN THE FACE OF THE “TRAP” OF AI

On the first day, on November 1, the director of the Formentor Foundation and president of the Formentor Awards jury, Basilio Baltasar, described as a “defeat” the progressive replacement of the book by the screen in the school environment, while the journalist Berna González Harbor rescued the conclusions of the colloquium held in Aranjuez in 2025, where AI was described as “a siren that dazzles users with its promises.”

In the debate, cases were raised such as that of Thelyson Orelien, excluded from the list of nominees for the Goncourt Prize due to suspicions that he used AI. Faced with this situation, the editor of Arpa Editores, Joaquín Palau, defended that publishers must “recover the essence” of the profession in the face of what he called a technological “trap.” “The book world knew only one crime, plagiarism. AI adds another, cheating,” he stated.

The editorial director of Alianza y Cátedra, Elena Martínez Bavière, called not to “undervalue what this tool can do ten years from now.” “Editors have the mission of preserving a world in which it is worth devoting time to creation,” he argued, although fellow editor Elena Ramírez (of Seix Barral, a publisher that publishes the winner of this year’s Formentor Prize, Gonçalo M. Tavares) has defended that “the human factor remains effective” in detecting the use of AI although she called for “legislation to protect creators.”

Along the same lines, editors such as Miguel Aguilar (Debate, Taurus and Random House) focused on the need to demand greater transparency from the media and the industry itself regarding the use of artificial content detectors. In addition, the Gallimard publishing house announced that it will use the Pangram detector for all its manuscripts, although its editor Gustavo Guerrero warned: “Pangram will be surpassed.”

The general director of the Feltinelli Publishing Group, Gianluca Foglia, predicted that “everyone” will use AI and defended the role of books as a “necessary tool for learning.” However, there were also reflections in favor of AI such as that of Clara Capitao, from Penguin Random House Portugal, as well as the literary agent María Lynch: “You don’t have to be afraid of technology, but of technology companies.”