Dr. Edson Prestes

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has received a lot of attention these days. Although this domain is not new, i.e. the very first conference on the subject happened 1956 and the term itself was coined by John McCarthy at that time, only today with the increase of computational power we have started understanding its positive and negative impacts on humanity. While some discussions have shown AI as a key domain to attain the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, others show AI systems surpassing human intelligence and creating a dystopian future for humanity.
To be more technical or speculative, it is imperative we, as society, participate in this discussion for several reasons. AI systems have the potential to impact all aspects of our lives ranging from the way we learn social rules to decide if we should live or not. In fact, we can easily find several examples of systems posing serious risks to our fundamental rights that go beyond privacy issues.

In this talk, Dr. Edson will discuss some efforts in the Industry and Multilateral Organizations that he is deeply involved related to Ethical AI, like the recent published "IEEE Ontological Standard for Ethically Driven Robotics and Automation Systems", which led the working group that produced it to be the recipient of the prestigious IEEE SA Emerging Technology Award; and the UNESCO's Recommendation on the ethics of artificial intelligence which was approved by acclamation by UNESCO's Members in November 2021.

Biography:

Dr. Edson Prestes is Full Professor at Institute of Informatics of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. He is leader of the Phi Robotics Research Group and CNPq Research Fellow. He received his BSc in Computer Science from the Federal University of Pará (1996), Amazon, Brazil, and MSc (1999) and PhD (2003) in Computer Science from Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.
Edson is Senior Member of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (IEEE RAS) and IEEE Standards Association (IEEE SA). Over the past years, he has been working in several initiatives related to Standardisation, Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Ethics. For instance, Edson is Member of the United Nations Secretary-General’s High-level Panel on Digital Cooperation, co-chaired by Melinda Gates and Jack Ma; Member of the UNESCO Ad Hoc Expert Group for the Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence; South America Ambassador at IEEE TechEthics; Chair of the IEEE RAS/SA 7007 - Ontologies for Ethically Driven Robotics and Automation Systems Working Group (IEEE 7007 WG); Vice-Chair of the IEEE RAS/SA Ontologies for Robotics and Automation Working Group (ORA WG); Founding Chair of the IEEE South Brazil RAS Chapter; Member of the IEEE Global Initiative on Ethics of Autonomous and Intelligent Systems; Member of the MIT/IEEE Global Council on Extended Intelligence; Advisor in the Carnegie AI & Equality Initiative at Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs; Senior Advisor at The Future Society; Advisor at AI Policy Labs; Advisor at C Minds; Fellow at US EP3 Foundation; and so on.