Capítulo 1. Fundamentos de la inteligencia artificial y su relación con la comunicación.

The first chapter lays the conceptual and historical foundations for understanding the relationship between AI and communication. It starts from the premise that the aspiration to endow machines with human capabilities—movement, speech, reasoning, emotion—is not exclusive to digital modernity, but a constant in the cultural and technological history of humanity. The automata of antiquity, the mechanical devices of the Renaissance, and the automata of the Enlightenment are symbolic and technical precursors of contemporary AI. Classical and contemporary definitions of communication are explored, from linear transmission models to theories of mediation, media ecology, and digital convergence. The main theories of communication are analyzed—mathematical theory, semiotics, cultural mediation, agenda setting, media ecology, critical theory, and cultural studies—and examine how digitalization, convergence, and AI have transformed the processes, actors, and meanings of communication. Digitalization has dematerialized media, multiplied channels, and democratized the production and circulation of messages. Media convergence has given rise to complex communication ecologies, where users are prosumers and communication unfolds in decentralized and collaborative networks. AI, for its part, introduces intelligent automation, extreme personalization, and algorithmic mediation, redefining the boundaries between the human and the artificial, authorship and agency, creativity and automation. The chapter concludes with a reflection on the epistemological and ethical challenges that AI poses for the field of communication: the opacity of algorithms, the reproduction of biases, the concentration of power on global platforms, job insecurity, and the erosion of privacy and autonomy. It raises the need for a critical, interdisciplinary, and situated perspective to understand and transform communication in the digital age.