Determined to achieve goals that exceed the limits of their strength, humans have created machines that, in addition to performing arduous tasks with greater efficiency than a mortal would achieve, are aimed at imitating the cognitive capacity of their makers as far as possible. This would represent the culmination of artificial intelligence and would shake the social fabric in an unprecedented way. The threat to the legal concept of the person and, of course, to their rights and the means to protect them, would force legal science to reinvent itself to moderate a new reality that, like the current one, would require institutional courage and ethical principles to sustain itself.

In the case of criminal sciences, the evolution of computer systems has facilitated the administration of justice, by perfecting various methods to prevent crime or, where appropriate, apprehend the perpetrator. However, these advances do not always comply with the state obligation to protect human rights; For example, extreme video surveillance in cities and the massive collection of personal data have repercussions on the exercise of the right to privacy and identity, among others, which undermines trust in institutions and polarizes society, putting ideas technophiles in conflict with the desire to protect dignity through legal channels.

If to the above is added the option that the judicial function remains at the mercy of machines, under the pretext that human subjectivity always translates into errors, it is likely that in the future a system of jurisprudential integration "by algorithms" will stand out, which bury once and for all the evolution of ponderative thinking aimed at imparting justice. To a certain extent, scenarios of this nature are still hypothetical, as can be seen from the articles contained in this issue of the Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Penales, dedicated to the impact that artificial intelligence has had and may have on the disciplines that they analyze and intend to control. the criminal phenomenon.

It will be up to the reader, deep down, to ponder the type of values ​​that he would like to keep and nurture for generations to come, and they will hardly ever be appreciated in non-human creatures.

                                                                                                                                        Sergio Alonso Rodriguez

                                                                                         Director of the Mexican Journal of Criminal Sciences