#EDEN Porto AC 2026 - Cristina Díaz de la Cruz

Cristiana Diaz de la Cruz. She's academic vice rector and professor of business sciences at Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja. And her institution is one of the leading open learning institution in Latin America. It was since 1976 and she's still the institution universities still one of the leading universities in this region in this area and the faculty she comes from focuses his their research on heavily on digital transformation on small and medium enterprises. Please welcome Cristiana Diaz de la Cruz. >> [applause] >> Thank you very much for Eden and all the organizers for the opportunity to be here. It's a big pleasure for me. Just before I start I would like to give you some numbers about our university in the south of Ecuador, Latin America. It is a Catholic in university and we have like you see around 50,000 students more than 33,000 students from open and distance education. Now to develop my proposed framework for building a human centered educational model in the age of AI I would like to address the following points. Human AI collaboration returning to the deep questions an integral anthropology as a foundation learning as a vital relational, and transformative process. Keys for human AI collaboration. What AI must not replace. And some conclusions. Let us begin with human AI collaboration. This Congress has wisely chosen to discuss human AI collaboration for teaching and learning beyond technology. The very little The very title already takes a position on an issue so debated today. Since it regards such collaboration as possible. And points beyond technology. As the horizon. We must look to in order to find genuine answers. The framework I have come to present takes a firm step into this beyond. And places the human being at the center. But not only that. It places at the center precisely what makes us most human. Two paradigms stand opposed here. That of collaboration with a human-centered focus. And that of competition with a technocentric focus. The first rests on a humanistic logic that proposes true integral human development. The second on an economistic and mechanistic logic that prioritizes the search for efficiency. I would assume that most of us share the view that the first approach is the more desirable. And yet the second is inevitable. The technological race and the pursuit of competitiveness across every sector of the economy mean that the two paradigms coexist and must be made to complement each other. Competing with AI is therefore not a battle we can avoid. And this leads to ask ourselves basic questions once again. Questions that are at the same time more necessary than ever. Let me restate them with the underlying concern of each. Who is the human being? How are we constituted? In what ways do we differ positively from other beings and from machines? Which would give us some kind of competitive advantage? What does does it really mean to learn? The purpose that education pursues. What can ensure a full human life? The question of integral human development. What role do education and learning play in the search for for for fullness? How to align education with this broader purpose of human life? And what role should technology and AI in particular play in this process? There are the same questions humanity has always asked itself. And they will probably never cease to be current. But now they can serve as a basis for answering the question of the optimal relationship between the person and technology in a new context in the face of new challenges. Pope Benedict the 16th in his encyclical letter Caritas in veritate wrote that technology is highly attractive because it draws us out of our physical limitations and broadens and brothers are horizon. But human freedom is authentic only when it responds to the fascination of technology with decisions that are the fruit of moral responsibility. More recently, Pope Leo the 14th in his encyclical letter Magnificat humanitatis about human dignity in the age of AI observes that today our relationship with life seems to be in crisis. Everything that represents a limit tends to be read primarily as a defect to be corrected rather than a space in which the human being matures and opens to relationship. On the contrary, we we must remember that the human being does not flourish in spite of the limit, but often through the limit. Let us speak then about who the human being is. Fernando Rielo Pardal, a Spanish author, gives us a very simple but powerful definition. The human being is a finite being open to the infinite. This same author argued that a truly integral anthropology should consider the person in their three levels, physical, psychological, and spiritual, their four domains of relationship, personal, social, sacred, and cosmic, and their multiple dimensions, political, familial, economic, technological, cultural, among many others. It is precisely the spiritual level that opens a person to the deeper form of relationship with what transcends them. And moreover, it is where the human faculties take root, intelligence, the will, and freedom. Or the unity faculty. If we absolutize any one of these levels, domains, dimensions, or faculties, while ignoring the others, we are not fostering true integral human development. Furthermore, this conception of the person as an open being makes relationship with makes relationship the very means by which the person overcomes their limits. The desire to transcend, to grow, to be enriched, is fulfilled through the generation of good relationships with God or the sacred, with others or society, with nature or the cosmic environment, and with oneself from our consciousness and inner life. And all of this is reflected to precisely in education. I present it through the following diagram. In the age of AI, it is clearer than ever that learning is not merely having the correct answer to a question, however complex that question may be. We return to asking what it means to learn, how one truly learns. And now we add the question of what role AI should play in this process, so that genuine collaboration may be established. One of the most authentically human processes is learning. But not just any kind of learning, rather the learning that involves the whole person. That transforms they inwardly and outwardly. And that moves them to meet the needs and opportunities they observe in their environment. Yes. Human learning is only true learning if it transforms the life of the one who learns and consequently their environment. Much has been said about learning as the transformation of the person and of reality. However, not every kind of learning, not every kind of transformation leads the person to a full life. In this context of an authentic search for fullness, the person is fulfilled and grows in relationship with the domains that enrich their nature, the sacred domain, God transcendence or the sacred, the social domain, other people, the cosmic domain, nature, and all the things and phenomena that surround us, and the don- the personal domain, the inner life of each human being. Authentic human AI collaboration starts from the premise that there are essential human processes that cannot be interrupt or replaced by technology. For a reason that is indeed ontological. There is an ontological abyss between the human being and technology. Even though at times it may seem that there are no boundaries between the on- the one and the other. If we want a soccer example, since we are in World Cup season, the athlete who learns to play begins by understanding the techniques for taking a penalty, then practices them again and again, and finally demonstrates them in many televised matches, which turns them into a famous figure able to move crowds and command multi-million dollar contracts. Without doubt, transformative learning is observed only when there is a fruit, a real result of learning. This is where we perceive the vast the vast difference between having the correct answer to a question, knowing how to explain a technique for taking penalties, and winning a World Cup with fi- final by executing it with masterly. Now is the moment for the question, and what role does AI play? What roles can it have, and what roles can it not have if we want to ensure genuine collaboration? Relating to AI is still a way of relating to a reality, albeit a virtual one, that must be understood in its potential and its limitations. If we wanted to compare it with a human being, we could say that interacting with AI is not like interacting with a person, but it has no because it has no experience of what it communicates. It does not perceive emotions and cannot give give of itself or unite itself to a life ideal. Nevertheless, in a certain sense, it could be regarded as engaging with the whole of humanity. Centuries upon centuries of human knowledge, all at hand and with a great capacity for structure information. If reading a book is in a way being in relationship with its author, then interacting with AI may be like interacting with millions of people, but without a face, without singularity. Bearing this reflection in mind, and considering that the relationship with AI cannot offer the human being the fullness of their being, and it's in its levels, domains, and dimensions, the care we must take is that AI should neither impede nor interrupt any of the essential human processes that ensure true learning. Rather, AI should strengthen these processes. What, then, would be these keys to good human-AI collaboration? AI that strengthens the relationship with oneself, posing Socratic questions, strengthening metacognition, and requiring critical reflection, and a personal stance on a problem. AI that strengthens the relationship with others, offering knowledge from other human beings, recommending personalized forms of real interaction, and getting to know the learning better in order to attend to their needs. AI that strengthens the relationship with the nature environment, presenting real problems from one's surroundings, and creative immersive experiences. AI that strengthens the relationship with the sacred, providing profound questioning, raising questions of meaning, and offering reflections connected to students' beliefs, among others. These points allow us to see the potential that AI has to strengthen the domains of relationship, but also its limits, since it cannot and must not replace them entirely. Let us conclude with a few brief closing reflections. AI net cannot replace the singularity of each human being and their lived experience. AI cannot replace the singularity of the real problems in the learners context. Meaningful interaction with the person's four domains of relationship remains essential for learning. True learning occurs only if there is a genuine transformation of the person and their context. A full human life requires essential processes that take time such as self-giving, dialogue, care, and the search for truth, goodness, and beauty. AI can facilitate some of these processes, but never replace them. All of these lead us to believe that AI offers us a new opportunity to strengthen what makes us more human. To achieve this, education remains a truly privileged space. Thank you very much.