内容摘要：“For months, I, like many Venezuelans, have been in hiding for my safety. Unfortunately, my time in hiding has come to an end. As of today, I am part of the list of Venezuelans kidnapped by the dictatorship.”

“For months, I, like many Venezuelans, have been in hiding for my safety. Unfortunately, my time in hiding has come to an end. As of today, I am part of the list of Venezuelans kidnapped by the dictatorship.”

The woman’s story stayed with Garcia after he returned to Barcelona and his work as cofounder of the design studio, Domestic Data Streamers (DDS).Over the years, the studio has grown into a 30-person team of experts in varied disciplines such as psychology, architecture, cognitive science, journalism and design. The studio has collaborated with diverse institutions such as museums, prisons and churches, as well as the likes of the United Nations, and uses technology to bring “emotions and humanity” to data visualisation.

Then, in around 2019, with the rise of generative artificial intelligence – a model of machine learning that uses algorithms to create new content from data scraped from the internet – the team began to explore image-generating technology, following the release of ChatGPT.As they did, Garcia thought of the grandmother from Syria and how this technology might help someone like her by constructing images based on memories.He believes that memories – captured through records like photographs – play an integral role in connecting generations.

“Memories are the architects of who we are. … It’s a big part of how social identities are built,” he says.He also likes to cite Montserrat Roig, a Catalan author, who wrote that the biggest act of love is to remember something.

But in the past, people had fewer opportunities to document their lives than their mobile phone-wielding contemporaries, he says. Many experiences have been omitted or erased from collective memory due to lack of access, persecution, censorship or marginalisation.

So with this in mind, in 2022, Garcia and his team launched the Synthetic Memories“Now they know it is not the reality. In view of this ground reality, they have adopted a new realistic and pragmatic approach, which is good for everyone,” he said.

Ibraheem Bahiss, analyst at the International Crisis Group, said the meeting between Muttaqi and Iranian President Pezeshkian doesn’t signal an “impending official recognition”. However, he said, “pragmatic considerations” have driven Iran to engage the Taliban, given its “key interests” in Afghanistan.“Security-wise, Tehran wants allies in containing the ISIS [ISIL] local chapter. Tehran has also been seeking to expand its trade relations with Afghanistan, now being one of its major trading partners,” he told Al Jazeera.

In January 2024, twin suicide bombings in Kerman marked one of Iran’s deadliest attacks in decades, killing at least 94 people. The Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), an Afghanistan-based offshoot of ISIL, claimed responsibility.In recent years, ISKP has also emerged as a significant challenge to the Taliban’s rule, having carried out multiple high-profile attacks across Afghanistan.