Science Ministry at the first Congress on Artificial Intelligence: “Our policies aim to promote the adoption of AI for the benefit of people and sustainable development”
Science Undersecretary Carolina Gainza highlighted the public policies that have promoted technological development during the seminar on artificial intelligence, neuro-rights, digital platforms and the metaverse.
The International Congress on Artificial Intelligence (AI), Neuro-rights, Digital Platforms and the Metaverse got underway in the hall of honor of the Former National Congress Building, in central Santiago.
The event is taking place in a hybrid format, both over zoom and in-person. It has been organized by Future Congress and the Encuentros del Futuro Foundation, the Challenges of the Future, Science, Technology and Innovation Senate Commission, and the Chilean Academy of Sciences.
The aim is to reflect on new technologies, their impacts – both positive and negative – and the debate regarding the limits of AI.
Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation Undersecretary Carolina Gainza participated in the opening of the congress. She emphasized the profound transformations that have been generated by technology, as well as the need for regulation.
“Regulations have emerged to regulate the uses that have been given to technology, and to further the need for rights in accordance with these changes. For example, copyright laws followed the massification of the printing press, and labor rights followed the industrial revolution. Public policies have also emerged, such as industrialization policies, or educational policies to promote reading and writing. What do we do in the face of technologies such as AI, which imply both opportunities and threats? What kind of public policies are commensurate with this world in which technologies proliferate without precedent, except maybe in science fiction?” Undersecretary Gainza asked.
She stressed that “our ministry’s current artificial intelligence policy, which was presented in 2021, aims to promote the adoption of artificial intelligence for the benefit of people and sustainable development.”
She explained that this policy centers on three main areas: “Firstly, factors concerning the basic elements that enable and deploy AI, associated with the development of talent, technological infrastructure and data. Secondly, the development and adoption of artificial intelligence, a space where AI is created and deployed, with stakeholders who design, provide and demand its different applications and techniques. A third area groups together the ethical and normative aspects, and the social and economic impacts.”
President of the Senate, Álvaro Elizalde, referred to the role of politics in this paradigm shift for technological development: “In this first congress, we face the challenge of addressing the new realities that already surround us, such as remote working, conversations over zoom, the vulnerability of personal data and the interference of platforms like Facebook and Twitter (…) Legislatively, we are working on new regulations, such as the indemnity of neural data, which has been approved in a historic step (…) The public sphere cannot be handed over to others, and people must always be at the center of our actions. This is why the mission of current politics is to act promptly, because the future is now.”
The congress will also be attended by Interior Minister Carolina Tohá, Minister Secretary General of the Presidency Ana Lya Uriarte, Science Minister Silvia Díaz, Health Minister Ximena Aguilera and Transport Minister Juan Carlos Muñoz, who will be part of the panel discussion “Governance of the Digital and Virtual World.”