Eugénio Oliveira
The Social Impact of Machine Intelligence
Abstract:
Generative AI fundamentals, applications impact, challenges, limitations, and regulation will be discussed.
We will address and analyze the main foreseen uses for Beneficial AI as well as the emergence of possible Maleficent AI, together with the potentially dangerous impact on society, including excessive energy consumption.
We will emphasize the importance of AI for a sustainable environment, aiming to empower people rather than replace them, as opposed to questionable military and other undesirable applications.
We also question the possibility of harmonious Human-Machine Interaction including embodied AI, like social Robots, leading to Ethics or Artificial Morality in Autonomous Robots.
Emphasis will be put on the need for more explicit legislation on AI development, deployment, and use, all around the world. A more speculative approach will conclude the talk by stating a few comments on the polemic possibility of an Artificial General Intelligence.
Short Bio:
Emeritus and Full Professor at the University of Porto, Portugal. Co-founder, in 1989, of LIACC (Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science Laboratory) at the University of Porto.
He got his PhD in Artificial Intelligence at New University of Lisbon in 1984. He was awarded with the Gulbenkian Prize for Science and Technology.
“Guest Academic” at IBM/IEC in Belgium. In the seventies was R&D Engineer at Brown Boveri, Switzerland.
He created PRODEI, the PhD Program on Informatics Engineering at the University of Porto and successfully supervised 23 PhD students. His scientific work has more than 6000 citations and h index 38 (GS).
He was a member of the Scientific Council for New Talents in AI at the Gulbenkian Foundation.
He was involved in research projects, funded by national and international agencies concerning AI, Robotics and multi-agent systems applications.
His main influence has been in directing, collaborating, promoting and supporting activities leading to AI-based applications such as MASDIMA (a Multi-Agent System for Air traffic plan-disruption Management), the ANTE platform for B2B partners selection, ORBI and ARCA (an Expert System for Cardiac Arrhythmia Diagnosis), that were important breakthroughs at the time of their development.
Current topics of interest include “AI for Social Good”, Natural Language Processing, Multi- Agent Systems and Trust.
Emília Duarte
Pending Abstract
Short Bio:
Emília Duarte holds a PhD in Human Kinetics with a specialization in Ergonomics from the Technical University of Lisbon (2011), a Master’s in Ergonomics in Occupational Safety from the same institution (2006), and a degree in Industrial Design from IADE (1994). She is currently a full professor of Design at IADE – Universidade Europeia, Lisbon, Portugal, where she teaches Ergonomics in Design. Emília serves as the Scientific Coordinator of UNIDCOM/IADE – Research Unit in Design and Communication.
Previously, she led the PhD programme in Design (until 2023) and the Master’s in Interaction Design (until 2019) at IADE. Between 2014 and 2016, she was the Vice-Rector for Research and Development at IADE-U and also directed the Department of Postgraduate Studies.
Her research focuses on Interaction Design, Emotional Design, Human-Robot Interaction, Information Design, and Cognitive Ergonomics. Emília’s interests include Social Design, particularly in areas such as Design for Health and Well-Being, Design for Behavioural Change, and Ethics in Design. Throughout her career, she has participated in various research projects, supervised six doctoral theses, and more than thirty master’s theses. She has authored over 100 publications in scientific journals and conference proceedings and has co-edited one book and seven international conference proceedings. Additionally, she is passionate about landscape photography and nature hikes.