He grew up surrounded by computers. He has a bachelor’s and master’s degree in Computer Engineering. Nuno Moniz, 37, from the island of Faial, began his career in Portugal as a teacher and researcher and has developed award-winning projects. His application meuparlamento.pt won an international and a national award. In his doctoral thesis, he developed a method for anticipating the popularity of online content, which won him the Fraunhofer Portugal Challenge 2017 award.

About two years ago, Nuno Moniz began an adventure in the United States, researching topics such as the responsible development of Artificial Intelligence (AI), the automation of case forecasting, and data values and privacy.

DL: What was your educational background?
I’ve always had a keen interest in computers. My father owns an IT company in Faial. During my initial studies, I decided to study three areas: music, history, and computer engineering. In the end, I got into computer engineering. It was my oldest love. I got my bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Computer Engineering at the Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto (ISEP). I won the Foundation for Science and Technology grant to do my PhD at the University of Porto (UP). I finished in 2017 and from then on I continued my work as a researcher at INESC TEC. I started as a guest lecturer at UP’s Faculty of Sciences. I started exploring other options three years ago, mainly outside the country. I accepted a position at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, United States of America (USA). I’m now there as a research associate professor at the private Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society. Since 2023, I have been the director of a joint center with the Notre Dame-IBM Technology Ethics Lab.

DL: What research do you carry out in the USA?
My research area, in general, is artificial intelligence (AI), but I look at three things. The first is a particular topic called “unbalanced learning”: how you can automate the prediction of cases or values that are not so common. I also look at data privacy issues and a more general topic, which includes various issues linked to the responsible development of AI. This touches on the practical aspect of the question: how do you practically develop AI technology guided by responsibility, from its design, development, progression, and interaction aspects?

DL: What other work are you involved in?
Apart from organizing and serving the community, much of what I’ve been doing recently excites me. Last year, I organized the Portuguese AI Conference on the island of Faial. In terms of scientific work, I’m working with colleagues from the Catholic University of Croatia on the concept of memory modeling, i.e., investigating how tools like ChatGPT can model our memory of historical moments.

I’m developing a project with the Children’s Cancer Hospital in Mexico, which examines a particular problem in indigenous communities. Creating work is challenging when we don’t have information and data about the issues. We are developing a project that facilitates the selection of information directly from the source, i.e., the indigenous communities of Mexico, to enable the medical community to understand the impact and situation of cancer children.

I’ve also been developing more academic projects with the IBM Research unit, ranging from transparency in AI to AI governance to the new generation of AI solutions, especially those with low energy costs.

DL: Can AI be applied in countless situations we might not be aware of?
We tend to be very optimistic about technology. We often end up being dazzled by technological achievements. AI has immense potential to fundamentally impact several urgent areas of our collective lives, from medicine to agriculture to the climate. Still, these are often not the areas in which we are challenged by multiple news stories about how this technology can help us improve. Then there are a whole series of issues with AI that have to be recognized: when AI is developed and used and made available to the general public when it is not done in a thoughtful, responsible, and humble way, it can have societal severe impacts, some of them irreversible. I think this is the adolescence of AI: that encounter with reality and realizing that we are not alone in the world and that what we do has a concrete impact, so we can no longer allow certain attitudes. This is a debate we are witnessing today. It’s not just public discussion but also legislation and regulation at national and international levels. I don’t think a global organization isn’t considering how AI might impact its day-to-day operations.

DL: Do you believe that AI poses any danger to humanity?
I don’t think it’s a danger to humanity, by definition. That’s part of a narrative with no practical basis. We’re talking about something incapable of correctly reporting stories or historical facts that sometimes has trouble doing simple mathematics. We are far from any AI catastrophe, but that doesn’t mean there are no concrete dangers today. What we often hear about the dangers of AI is a complete distraction. The problems of this technology are more difficult to discuss because there are concrete questions, for example, about the environment.

DL: Could we end up with cities run entirely by AI?
I put that question in the category of distractions. However, in city management, there are many opportunities for AI to be used highly positively, for example, in anticipating blocking situations or day-to-day problems in cities, from pollution hotspots and traffic to designing public policies. Given what is being developed today, we need to examine the concrete issues of how AI is useful or useless/dangerous. These problems are severe. We are in a frenzy of building massive data centers and advanced computing centers, which has a considerable impact on the environment and is dangerous for society.

DL: How can we still apply AI to the Azores?
I think the Azores are in a perfect position to exploit AI. The Azores have everything from marine biology to seismology and depend on agriculture, you name it. There are some convenient areas in which AI can be explored. Many things can be done, for example, in terms of better understanding the reality of fishing in the Azores and the cycles of species that are very dear to us and economically advantageous. Also, in terms of its operability, at the level of the government and its institutions. However, we must always consider the limitations of a region like the Azores and Portugal: the restriction of funds for more ambitious exploitation. There is already enough evidence from around the world about the benefits of AI in regions like the Azores for a very guided and private discussion about what to explore. If it hasn’t happened yet or is happening, I hope this debate will happen because the positive potential is clear and very exciting.
Concerning the Azores, it would be fascinating to see to what extent we can train our own scientists in this area. There is enormous potential for concrete and efficient AI exploitation in problems we encounter in the Azores, but we can’t be held hostage by “suppliers.” We must have the autonomous capacity to research and develop solutions to our problems, and the University of the Azores would be a cornerstone.

DL: Are you suggesting creating a course in Artificial Intelligence in the Azores?
It would be an exciting step towards taking the initiative to explore how this area of research and application could be beneficial to the Azores.

DL: Has AI not yet been explored in the region?
Given the information I have, no. I imagine it’s not often due to a lack of will but to budgetary constraints. However, like everything else in life, we make investments. Regarding our advantageous international position, for areas such as marine biology, some intersections can be exploited and are being exploited. I hope that we will see the fruits of this and that people will expand the capacities of the Azores to do research and development in AI at our pace and our size.

Maria Rovoredo is a journalism intern at the newspaper Diário da Lagora, Clife Botelho-director

Translated to English as a community outreach program from the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute (PBBI) and the Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures Department (MCLL) as part of Bruma Publication and ADMA (Azores-Diaspora Media Alliance) at California State University, Fresno, PBBI thanks Luso Financial for sponsoring NOVIDADES.