The main value today is in understanding, in discernment of that information
Tas argues AI requires 'IC' (body intelligence) and human discernment to function effectively in the digital age. Modern journalism's value lies in contextualizing and explaining information, not racing to publish first amid information overload.
- Marcelo Tas opened Semana S 2026 at Senac Hub Academy in Campo Grande on May 15, 2026
- He argues AI requires 'IC' (body intelligence) and human discernment to function effectively
- Modern journalism's value lies in contextualizing and explaining information, not racing to publish first
- Tas has worked with Sistema S institutions for decades, including Rá-Tim-Bum and Telecurso
Journalist Marcelo Tas opened Semana S 2026 in Campo Grande discussing AI's impact on communication, emphasizing human intelligence and contextual journalism over speed-driven reporting.
Marcelo Tas arrived in Campo Grande tired on a Friday evening, took a shower, and stepped outside into the city's damp air. The smell of wet earth after rain stopped him. It was the kind of sensory detail that stays with a person—a reminder of something essential beneath the noise of modern life. He had come to open Semana S 2026, a week-long gathering of free professional development, business forums, and civic engagement hosted by the Fecomércio-MS system across multiple Brazilian states. At the Senac Hub Academy, he would spend the day talking about communication in an accelerating digital age, about artificial intelligence, about what journalism has become and what it might need to be.
Tas is a journalist, presenter, actor, screenwriter, director, and writer—a career that has moved across many forms of storytelling. He spoke easily with reporters about his long relationship with the Sistema S, the network of educational and professional institutions that has shaped much of his work. Rá-Tim-Bum, the beloved children's program, existed because of the Sistema S. So did Telecurso. His corporate education work, his collaborations with Sesc and Senac—all of it traces back to this ecosystem. "It's difficult to measure," he said, "because so much of what I do today comes from decades of work within these institutions."
But the real work of the day was to provoke thought about where communication stands now. Tas framed his talk around a distinction most people don't make: before artificial intelligence, there is what he calls "IC"—the intelligence of the body, the human capacity to sense, to feel, to discern. Technology, he argued, cannot function without this foundation. The problem is not that AI exists. The problem is that we have begun to speak as though human intelligence is secondary to it, as though the body's knowing is obsolete. "In the era of AI, when our tendency is to talk so much about technology, we first have to understand that before artificial intelligence, you need IC," he said. "You need the intelligence of the body."
He turned then to the condition of information itself. In an exponential world, data accumulates faster than anyone can process it. People carry information on their backs, push it to the cloud, and still feel behind. But Tas suggested the real work is not accumulation—it is discernment. Before you load anything, you have to ask: What is my actual question? What is the problem I'm trying to solve? What is my real pain? This matters because the digital environment runs on a logic of acceleration, and acceleration breeds anxiety. The public is already drowning in news. They have access to information constantly. The old race to publish first is over.
This is where journalism enters the picture, and where Tas's argument becomes urgent. The speed-first model of news production no longer serves anyone. A journalist working in haste may actually worsen the quality of information, amplifying collective anxiety rather than reducing it. But a journalist working with agility—a different thing entirely—can listen, converse with colleagues, perceive what is truly relevant, and then organize that understanding into something coherent to throw into the ocean of noise. That is contribution. That is value. "The main value today is in understanding, in discernment of that information," he said.
The distinction between speed and agility runs through everything. Speed is reactive, driven by the clock. Agility is responsive, driven by perception. One makes things worse; the other makes them better. In a world where information moves at the speed of light and anxiety moves faster still, the role of journalism is not to race but to contextualize, to explain, to help people understand what is actually happening and why it matters. Tas had come to Campo Grande not to announce a new technology or a new platform, but to defend something older and more fragile: the human capacity to think clearly, to ask the right questions, and to communicate in a way that serves understanding rather than panic. He had felt it in the air after the rain—that sense of something real, something worth protecting.
Notable Quotes
In the era of AI, when our tendency is to talk so much about technology, we first have to understand that before artificial intelligence, you need IC—the intelligence of the body.— Marcelo Tas
The main value today is in understanding, in discernment of that information. Speed no longer solves the problem because the public already has access to news constantly.— Marcelo Tas
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
You opened by talking about the smell of wet earth. Why start there, rather than with the technology question?
Because that's where the real intelligence lives. You can't talk about AI and human discernment in the abstract. You have to ground it in the body, in sensation, in what we actually experience. The wet earth is a reminder that we're not just processors of information.
But isn't that romantic? In a digital age, doesn't that kind of thinking get left behind?
It gets left behind by people who think speed is the same as progress. But speed is killing journalism. Speed is killing understanding. The body knows things the algorithm doesn't—it knows when something feels wrong, when a story needs more listening, when the rush is making things worse.
So when you talk about "IC"—body intelligence—you're not talking about intuition in the mystical sense.
No. I'm talking about perception, discernment, the ability to ask the right question before you move. That's not mystical. That's the foundation of good work. You can't build AI on top of nothing. You build it on top of human judgment.
And journalism specifically—you're saying the old model of racing to publish first is actually harmful now?
It was always somewhat harmful. But now it's obviously broken. Everyone has the news instantly. What people need is someone who can say: here's what this means, here's the context, here's what you actually need to know. That requires time, conversation, thought. You can't do that in a panic.
What gives you hope that journalism can actually shift to that model?
The fact that people are exhausted by the speed. They're hungry for understanding. The institutions that support journalism—like the Sistema S—they're still investing in education, in thinking, in the long view. That matters. That's where change starts.