A coordenação das atividades será dos professores Fernando Aith, Ana Lydia Sawaya, Sylvia Dantas e Suzana Pasternak.

At the end of the second phase of the Intercontinental Academia (ICA) in Nagoya, on March 18, the 13 participants presented the details of the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on "Time" they have been working on since the first phase of the project in São Paulo.

The MOOC is the practical activity that has been asked to the participants as outcome of the ICA and was inspired by conferences, debates and workshops on the subject "Time", held both in São Paulo and in Nagoya.

The MOOC will be called 'Frontiers of Time: Exploring the Last Great Mystery' and will be hosted at Coursera's database, an online course platform created by five major American universities, of which USP is a partner.

There will be five lessons plus a video about the production of the course. Each lesson will take about one hour and have a text with approximately 7,000 words. The topics of the classes will be:

1. Introduction: Aspects of Time

2. Is the Present Special?

3. Time, Change and Cultural Differences

4. Is Time Different for Humans and Non-Humans?

5. How Do We Evaluate Time?

Each class will be divided into thematic sections. The first of them (Introduction: Aspects of Time), for example, will have four sections: 1) What is Time? 2) How do we perceive time? 3) How Do We Think About Time? 4) How do we use Time?.

The scripts will be ready in June and the filming is scheduled for August. One of the proposals is that the filming - with the performance of some of the participants - occurs at the research base of USP's Oceanographic Institute in Ubatuba, on the north coast of the State of São Paulo. Other alternative locations for the class production will still be considered.

Photo: IAR / Nagoya University

Three Brazilians were among the 19 young researchers participating in the first phase of the 4th Intercontinental Academia (ICA 4), held in Paris from October 18 to 27. The current edition addresses the theme "Intelligence and Artificial Intelligence" and the objective of the group is to explore fundamental interdisciplinary issues at the intersection of cognitive science, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence.

Two Brazilian participants are professors at USP: André Fujita, from the Institute of Mathematics and Statistics, who has been appointed by the IEA, and specialist in health technology assessment Patricia Coelho de Soárez, from the Medical School, which has supported her. The third Brazilian is Evandro Cunha, a professor of computational linguistics at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG).

The ICA is an initiative of the international network of University-Based Institutes for Advanced Study (UBIAS). Each edition is organized by two IASs from different continents. In the case of ICA 4, the hosts are the Paris Institute for Advanced Study and UFMG's Institute of Advanced Transdisciplinary Studies. The second phase will be held in June 2022, in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.

During the eight days of seminars, several themes have been discussed in a comprehensive manner, according to Fujita and Soárez. The sessions were followed by meetings between participants and mentors, as well as by visits to universities in the French capital.

The Installation Theory, a new field dedicated to understanding, analyzing, and changing behavior has been one of the addressed topics, being discussed besides the concept of intelligence, philosophy of computing, ethical principles in AI, the future of AI and its challenges, relationships between humans and machines, consciousness and emotion, robots of the future, the impact of AI on economy, theoretical frameworks for the functioning of deep neural networks, and the issue of whether or not it is really necessary to develop intelligent machines that mimic humans and their usefulness.

André Fujita (left) and Toshio Fukuda during a meeting at the Paris-Saclay Normal School. Professor emeritus from Nagoya University, Fukuda is one of the world's leading authorities on robotics.

Fujita has held individual meetings with Xiao-Jing Wang, Toshio Fukuda, Marc Mézard, Zaven Paré, Saadi Lahlou, Simon Luck, and Olivier Bouin, all mentors (senior researchers) of the ICA 4. At these, he has been able to describe his research projects and areas of work, and asked for criticism and suggestions.

Wang, Fukuda, and Mézard have praised the innovative aspects of Fujita's research projects in network statistics and in the use of heart rate variability (HRV) in the construction of a heart-machine interface, according to the Brazilian. They have also presented suggestions for a greater scope of work. Luck and Bouin have discussed possibilities for research grants at IASs in France and opportunities for funding Fujita's work in Europe.

He has also established connections for possible cooperation with Deshen Moodley and Surange Kasturi, two of the junior researchers participating in ICA 4. While Moodley could possibly become someone to work with in the area of HRV, Kasturi will potentially meet Fujita in the first semester of 2022 in the United States, where he works with the use of AI in data analysis in the health area.

Soárez has highlighted the exhibitions "In AI We Trust - Power, Illusion, and Control of Predictive Algorithms," given by Helga Nowotny, professor emeritus from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, and "Myths and Misunderstandings About Responsibility for the Unintended Impact of Artificial Intelligence," by Karen Yeung, a researcher of law, ethics, and informatics at the University of Birmingham. "Their speeches have sparked my interest in studying the economic, ethical, and social implications of the application of AI to health in the Brazilian context more deeply."

Patricia Soárez (right) with Laura Candiotto, from the Center for Ethics as Study in Human Value at the University of Pardubice

Yeung was chosen by Soárez as her mentor during ICA 4. "She is actively involved in technology policy in the UK and has been dedicated to understanding the challenges associated with the regulation and governance of emerging technologies," said the Brazilian.

According to Soárez, Yeung's recent work is focused on the legal, ethical, and social implications of using these new technologies. "We have started a discussion on the development of a project tentatively named An Interdisciplinary Approach to the Applications of Artificial Intelligence in Cancerology: Clinical Effectiveness and Social Implications," she said.

As an offshoot of this initial collaboration and supported by Sue Gilligan, manager of interdisciplinary research projects at the University of Birmingham, Soárez is now working with a group of ICA 4 participants to organize a proposal for a mid-term meeting at the British institution in March 2022. The idea is to discuss individual projects before the second stage of ICA 4 in November.

Another initiative by the researchers, Fujita said, will be the production of an article about the different points of view regarding AI and what the field expects for the next 20 years.

It will be a kind of manifesto signed by everyone, he said. "To this end, we will meet virtually every two weeks. Initially, we are scheduling seminars so that each one can better understand the research projects carried out by the others. We will also read articles on AI chosen by each of us. It is worth noting that we are a very heterogeneous group, formed by specialists in computer science, engineering, biology, philosophy, economics, law, and neuroscience, among other areas. This will allow us to have a very broad idea on the subject."

For Soárez, participating in the ICA 4 has challenged her to inaugurate a new way of thinking, articulating, and doing her research: "The greatest learning have I gained was the awakening to the possibility of developing new research projects with an interdisciplinary approach. And the best product was the potential to establish a solid and diversified academic network of researchers around the world. I hope to experience the celebration of the excellence and impact of the research projects developed by this collaborative network in the near future."

She also highlights that the visits to the Paris-Saclay University, the Sorbonne Center for Artificial Intelligence, and the Paris-Saclay Normal School have expanded networking possibilities beyond the Paris Institute for Advanced Studies.

Photos: Paris Institute for Advanced Study

The Scientific Committee for the second edition of the Intercontinental Academia gathered in late October and chose lawyer and human rights activist Akemi Kamimura to be one of the 21 young researchers members of the project.

The Intercontinental Academia is a program of the University-Based Institutes for Advanced Study (UBIAS), a network that brings together 36 institutes of advanced studies from all continents. The first edition of the program, organized by the IEA-USP and the Institutes for Advanced Research of the University of Nagoya, is still ongoing and focuses on Time.

The second edition's theme will be Human Dignity. The organizers are the University of Bielefeld's Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF) and the Israel Institute of Advanced Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Both meetings of the projects will take place in 2016: Jerusalem will host the first phase in March while Bielefeld will host the second one in August.

According to the organizers, the theme of the second edition is related to ethical and practical debates, which are crucial in several disciplines: "Human dignity is referred in research on terrorism, torture, war, big data and data protection, care in the long term, poverty reduction, social security, minorities, history of human rights, assisted suicide, border control and genetic engineering, just to name a few areas."

Each phase of the Academia will feature three or four master classes given by prominent intellectuals. Some of the topics to be addressed are:

Profile

Kamimura holds a Masters in Human Rights from the USP's Faculty of Law, where she has also completed her bachelor's degree. In 2014 she was a fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law in Heidelberg. In 2010 she was a student of the course Human Rights and Women: Theory and Practice at the Universidad de Chile's Faculty of Law.

She has been working in projects and institutions linked to human rights since 2000. In 2013/2014 she was a consultant of UNESCO for the coordination of a systematic project on human rights recommendations made by UN agencies and the Organization of American States (OAS). The aim of this study is to propose a monitoring mechanism for the implementation of these guidelines by the Brazilian government.

Kamimura hopes that her academic and professional experience can contribute to the debate about the international legal framework on human rights to be discussed at the Intercontinental Academia, especially with regard to equality and non-discrimination of gender.

Photo: Camila Rodrigues/SJESP

Para a coordenação da Ubias, há crescentes indicadores de que o mundo será diferente depois desta crise e que a globalização será questionada em muitas áreas

Os artigos serão publicados no site da Ubias, na página em inglês do IEA e no blog “Interdisciplinarity”, administrado pelo ZiF – Center for Interdisciplinary Research, da Universidade de Bielefeld. Os textos devem ter, no máximo, 10 mil caracteres, incluindo espaços, serem escritos em inglês e enviados até o final de maio para os emails zif@uni-bielefeld.de ou ubiasnetwork@gmail.com. Se o conjunto do material recebido for considerado de alta qualidade, é possível que gere posteriormente uma publicação da Ubias.

Sobre o tema

Segundo a coordenação da Ubias, a situação provocada pelo novo coronavírus desafia não apenas o controle de doenças e a capacidade de administrar crises: deve ter impactos de longo prazo e alcance nos Estados, sociedades e cooperação internacional.

“Há crescentes indicadores de que o mundo será diferente depois desta crise e que a globalização será questionada em muitas áreas. De acordo com essas observações, a crise do corona deve marcar um momento de virada. Em tempos de grandes incertezas, a ciência é solicitada a olhar para o futuro e oferecer um discurso racional sobre como reagir à situação”, avalia a carta da chamada.

A rede de IEAs

A Ubias é composta atualmente por 41 membros, que representam 44 institutos de estudos avançados, todos ligados a universidades. Guilherme Ary Plonski, vice-diretor do IEA, é o coordenador para o biênio 2018-2020. A rede tem como objetivo a troca de experiências e a realização de pesquisas conjuntas. Para essa chamada, a Ubias atua em parceria com o ZiF.

Foto: Pxhere