Cátia Pesquita, LASIGE’s integrated member, was invited to give her opinion about the use and advances of Artificial Intelligence (AI), following the global pact to manage digital technologies proposed by the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General António Guterres, to the news of TSF radio station, on June 5, 2023 (min 17:52).

Guterres, who in 2021 proposed a Global Digital Compact that already advocated promoting AI regulation, to avoid threats that are difficult to control, presented his ideas on how to do so in a 30-page document. The UN’s intention is for governments, the private sector, and civil society to adopt this grand bargain in September 2024, during the Future Summit convened by the UN.

Cátia Pesquita does not believe in an immediate threat to human beings but there are issues to be weighed up, such as where the data came from, who generated the data, and the associated ethical issues, and the risk of perpetuating the biases generated by the use of these data.

However, emphasizes, among others, “one of the great potentials of AI in science and health is its ability to do what scientists and humans cannot, which is to deal with a huge amount of data and find patterns in that data that help us understand the biological phenomena behind science and health”.

Our researcher concludes that “we need to find the balance between regulation and the potential we can extract for our benefit, be it in health, climate change, etc.”.