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The objective of this essay is to critically reflect upon the current condition of our most modern artificial intelligence (AI) systems, their latent potentials, their promising technical possibilities, as well as their intrinsic logical, structural, and functional limitations. In order to accomplish this, we will take as an emblematic example and subject of study the new LaMDA by Google, which is a powerful expert artificial intelligence system that processes spoken language, thus a system designed and utilized under the weak theory of AI, which inherently excludes any plausible hypothesis of consciousness right from the outset.

El gobierno de Lula acaba de completar su primer tercio de mandato y vive un momento de crisis e indefinición. Su popularidad cae, la economía continúa enfriada y la inde¬finición parece ser el rasgo de su administración. Lula llegó al gobierno al frente de un partido cuya actuación siempre estuvo marcada por una contumaz oposición y por la prédica de una moral pública intachable. A pesar de esto, en la actualidad, hay carencia de mayor claridad en sus mani¬festaciones sobre el establecimiento de un proyecto de construcción estatal que supere el mora¬lismo y el oposicionismo. ; Lula's government has just completed a third of its term in office and is now undergoing a spell of crisis and aimlessness. Popularity rates are falling, the economy remains in the doldrums and irresolution seems to be the main feature of the current administration. Lula came to power leading a party whose performance was always marked by staunchness in oppo¬sition and the preaching of immaculate public morals. Despite all this, the government lacks cla¬rity concerning the shaping of a state building project extending beyond self righteousness and antagonism.

In the contemporary world, the progressive aging of the population is both a major achievement and a huge challenge for developing countries, especially when it relates to public policies for the elderly. The scenario is particularly worrying in peri-urban spaces, which we call "territories of fragility", in which multiple deficiencies overlap — basic sanitation, housing, accessibility, education and health — those aspects coupled with the disruption of community ties, negatively impact the aging process. In this article, we analyze the previously presented scenario through the results of a continued education project that had as students 420 professionals that currently work in the Secretariat of Social Assistance of the city of São Paulo (Brazil). The aim of the project was the improvement of the work in the social assistance services network, especially the ones that are a part of the basic social protection, aimed at the most vulnerable part of the population. The use of professional-centered training methodology takes into account what happens in the field, it is based on daily problems, on the perception of skills and abilities, on the challenges and opportunities given by occupied spaces, in a dialogical and critical perspective. In other words, the result was a collection of 420 "first-hand" narratives that unveils a reality that is the opposite of what was expected. For the enrichment of the reflection, we present the commitments to this educational process — through the narratives of teachers and supervisors — in the work of recognizing the action field, the difficulties and achievements in the implementation of the project, and in practice with the groups. Content analysis indicates, in the complexity of the narrative, how all individuals that were a part of the project overcame life-work challenges and articulated knowledge about the aging process in territories of fragility.

"The markedness principle in Brazilian Portuguese verb-based discourse markers viu? and entendeu?. A productive, vigorous debate on grammar issues took place as the new millennium approached. A significant amount of work was published in that field as we witnessed a grammatical boom between 1991 and 2014 in Brazil (Faraco and Vieira 2016). Along with a resulting new range of descriptive perspectives and propositions, the debate over discourse markers (DMs) relevance has increased sharply among language curriculum professionals. Although they have played an important role in functionalist grammars where interaction is a key component, DMs are still regarded as a peripheral category in natural language normative grammars. Also, DMs are typically associated with language users' social status. Based on cognitive-functionalist grammar studies, my research has placed DMs on the common ground between a functionalist framework (by investigating the relationship between form and content) and cognitive linguistics theory (categorization, prototypicality, conceptual metaphors). This paper explores some of my research findings on the markedness principle as applied to Brazilian Portuguese DMs viu? and entendeu? in the light of cognitive-functionalist theories. Some contrast between these DMs and their English equivalent is also explored. In doing so, I hope to bring forward new resources to explore verb-based DMs in teaching Portuguese to speakers of other languages. Keywords: discourse markers, functionalism, cognitive linguistics, markedness, teaching Portuguese to speakers of other languages."