INESC TEC Science&Society

Editorial

Lia Patrício

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a constantly evolving scientific domain. It's hard to predict what the future holds for this kind of technology. However, it's clear that AI is changing our lives in significant ways. It's shifting the way we work, live, and make decisions. It is currently going through a phase of fast growth and development.

A future with responsible AI must be collaborative. It will require a close cooperation between states, companies, and society. In the upcoming years, AI is set to have an ever-increasing impact on our lives, in areas like healthcare, education, work, and mobility.

AI and Leadership - the next phase. Are we prepared?

João Claro

As Artificial Intelligence (AI) continues to evolve, it is reshaping nearly every aspect of society – from the economy and healthcare to industry, education, science, and government. Research, development, and innovation (RDI) organisations, positioned at the forefront of this transformation, urgently need skilled leadership that can guide the adoption of AI while addressing ethical, collaborative, and broader societal implications. Effective AI leadership extends beyond enhancing organisational efficiency or competitiveness; it calls for a visionary approach that champions societal change, upholds ethical standards, promotes cross-disciplinary collaboration, and manages complexity in an unpredictable landscape. Leaders must balance innovation with responsibility, leveraging AI’s potential to advance both organisational objectives and societal well-being.

Building Inclusive AI: Integrating Relational Ethics with Compositional Design

Virginia Dignum

As AI technologies advance, ensuring their transparency, scalability, and ethical governance becomes increasingly vital. Traditional AI paradigms, rooted in a rational framework, prioritize efficiency, problem-solving, and optimization. This paradigm emphasizes autonomy and a task-oriented approach, but often leads to AI systems that are monolithic and opaque. Moreover, this approach neglects crucial aspects such as societal impact, ethical considerations, and long-term maintainability. To address these gaps, we propose integrating relational ethics, exemplified by feminist philosophies, with compositional AI principles from software engineering. This integration emphasizes community, interconnectedness, modularity, and transparency, ensuring that AI systems are both socially responsible and technologically robust, capable of meeting the complex demands of modern socio-ecological systems.

Responsible AI Beyond Research and Regulations

Pedro Saleiro — 2025-01-20

AI is moving at an incredible pace, and it’s accelerating, with trillions of dollars under investment. It’s reshaping industries and even the way we work and live our lives. However, as AI becomes more influent, the importance of Responsible AI becomes more obvious.

The Five Pillars for Companies to Get the Most Out of AI

Pedro Amorim — 2025-01-20

The popularity of Artificial intelligence (AI) has been growing rapidly, due to multiple scientific and technological breakthroughs, as well as their potential application to several areas. The most recent disruption was in generative AI, with large language models (e.g., ChatGPT accumulating vast amounts of knowledge, and using it to generate text and images in response to human prompts.

Using ChatGPT in education - a personal experience

José Nuno Oliveira — 2025-01-20

Over the past four years, several events have shaken the world from the relative tranquillity of the post-World War II period. Towards the end of 2019, a pandemic emerged, the likes of which had not been seen since the 1918 flu. In 2022 and 2023, two wars began on Europe's doorstep; and on the last day of November 2022, the news came that Artificial Intelligence (AI) software capable of automatically carrying out tasks that until then were thought to be the privilege of the human intellect (e.g., writing prose, composing poetry and programming computers) was available online.

How AI can help Deep-Sea exploration Challenges

Diana Viegas — 2025-01-20

A very significant part of the deep sea is still unmapped, particularly in areas that are difficult to access. Earlier this year, new previously unknown "underwater mountains" were discovered in Chilean waters, teeming with deep-sea life. Exploring the deep sea reveals new species and ecosystems unknown to science, and this expedition brought to our knowledge about 100 new species. These discoveries highlight the potential for finding many more unique organisms, providing insights into how life thrives in extreme environments, which can lead to advancements in biology and ecology, and even provide clues about life on other planets.

A tale of two transitions: sustainable energy and Artificial Intelligence

Ricardo Bessa — 2025-01-20

Energy sector landscape

Over the last two decades, the energy sector has undertaken a structural transformation summarised by the 3Ds: decarbonisation, decentralisation, and digitalisation.

The drive towards decarbonisation has seen notable progress through increased integration of renewable energy sources. This involves strategic actions, such as replacing carbon-intensive technologies like coal power plants with large-scale renewable energy power plants, increasing renewable energy self-consumption rates among industrial, domestic, and buildings, and electrifying vehicle fleets. Additionally, efforts extend to energy vectors like green hydrogen and energy storage technologies, providing enhanced system flexibility, including seasonal storage, and (at least) keeping the security of energy supply. However, the substantial increase in renewable energy introduces significant challenges in all energy system elements: generation, transmission, distribution, and consumers.

AI and Sustainability: the opportunities and risks we face

António Baptista — 2025-01-20

The tools and concept associated with "Artificial Intelligence" have gained significant prominence among consumers over recent years, as well as great business interest among investors and companies. However, and like any "El Dorado", the implications of these new solutions must be analysed and safeguarded - whether in terms of economic, environmental and social sustainability.