The Fifth Layer: Creative Industries, AI and the Repositioning of Latin America

Abstract

The rapid expansion of the global artificial intelligence ecosystem is reshaping the rules of international markets, raising a strategic question: How can intermediate economies such as those of Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico strengthen their competitive capacity?

Latin America faces structural gaps in technological innovation that make competition in the first four layers of the artificial intelligence ecosystem—energy, semiconductors, data centers, and foundational models—practically unviable. The central hypothesis of this article holds that Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico perform better on cultural and creative development indicators, suggesting a comparative advantage in the fifth layer: AI applications. This article examines the intellectual property policy trajectories of the selected countries over the past two decades and proposes a renewal of the social-democratic third way to secure the region's competitiveness: neither centralized cultural planning nor neoliberal withdrawal from the sector, but rather strategic public investment in enabling capabilities that democratize access to frontier technologies so that Latin American creativity can compete globally in paradigms transformed by AI applications and the collapse of multilateralism.

The study combines a quantitative analysis of statistical dispersion with a comparative documentary and institutional analysis. The quantitative dimension draws on two internationally recognized instruments: the Global Innovation Index and the Heritage Economic Freedom Index.