In an increasingly technology-driven world, the dissemination of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is already a reality. Therefore, its regulation has been the focus of international attention and several countries, among them Brazil, they try to get ahead in this regard. Over here, various points of divergence have contributed to the voting of bill (PL) 2.338/2023 seja adiada e recentemente o Tribunal de Contas da União (TCU) identificou vários riscos relacionados a tais regulamentações que estão em tramitação no Congresso Nacional
The work of the TCU put the Brazilian Artificial Intelligence Strategy (Ebia) into perspective, addressing and analyzing how this would hinder its implementation, as well as the possible impacts resulting from the eventual approval of these proposals, about the public and private sectors. Established by a decree from the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MCTI), Ebia takes on the role of guiding the Brazilian State in favor of initiatives, in its various aspects, that stimulate the development of solutions in Artificial Intelligence, as well as its conscious and ethical use
For the professor at the University of Brasília (UnB) and researcher in the field of technological innovation applied to health, Dr. Paulo Henrique de Souza Bermejo, it is necessary to take into account especially whether Brazilian regulation can restrict innovation, going against Ebia. It is worth mentioning that Ebia has six main objectives: to contribute to the development of ethical principles for the responsible development and use of AI; promote sustained investments in research and development in AI; remove barriers to innovation in AI; empower and train professionals for the AI ecosystem; stimulate Brazilian innovation and AI in an international environment; and promote cooperation between public and private entities, the industry and research centers for the advancement of Artificial Intelligence
Paulo highlighted that excessive regulation can burden and increase the cost of the evolution of AI systems in the country, so it would incur excessive spending of time and money for companies to comply with complex regulatory rules, instead of spending resources on improving technology. This would foster the monopoly of a few financially capable companies to create systems regularly, to remain in accordance with the possible published standards. Thus, startups and smaller companies, they would not be able to face this, risking the objectives of its own Ebia. All this scenario can result in the loss of international competitiveness of various productive sectors, therefore it is so important to find a balance between regulation and innovation to ensure that AI is developed and used in an ethical and responsible manner, without hindering your evolution, added the professor
He explained that one of the most essential aspects of the area, in Brazil, is to position the country as an international competitor, both in the development of AIs themselves, how much in the application in the productive sector. The amount of investment and the proposed regulation in each country will directly influence the positioning in relation to other countries. This means that the national industry can have more autonomy, evolving its own technology and aiming for export, or being more dependent on the import of technology from other countries. In a globalized market, Brazilian companies need to have the ability to compete with foreign ones, following the technological evolution to make the production process more efficient, explained
The teacher pointed out, still, that the regulation distinguishes AI systems from other systems. "In my view", this in the medium and long term, will apply to practically all types of software, given that less intelligent software systems will tend to become obsolete and be replaced more quickly by others. In other words, this will possibly lead to the application of a series of restrictions on all types of software, including those made abroad. That is to say, should impact the national software industry and also Brazilian society as a whole, as it may delay the introduction of new technologies in the country, that will make the national production system, related to various sectors of the economy, more efficient and competitive, emphasized
Another aspect to be considered concerns the restrictions on experimentation, since academic research in AI usually encompasses experiments with new methods and algorithms. Restrictive regulations can limit researchers' freedom to test other approaches, what can hinder the discovery of new solutions. Furthermore, can hinder collaboration among researchers, whether they are from different institutions or countries. This can happen, for example, if regulations deny the sharing of fundamental datasets for the advancement of AI, limiting the ability to create more efficient algorithms, endorsed.
The need for flexible regulation
The researcher pointed out as ideal, a flexible AI regulation in Brazil, accompanying society's understanding when it comes to technology. "As there are so many factors involved", the best is not to rush regulation in Brazil, and yes to deepen the debate and include everyone involved, as an example of the government, private sector, civil society and academia, in the decision-making process. Regulation is very necessary, but it must be done with caution, to consider all angles of the current circumstances. Even because there is a speed in the evolution of these technologies, new situations arise daily that are not even foreseen in current laws, not even in some of the bills that are being processed in Brazil. Logo, urgent is the discussion and reflection around the theme, but not necessarily the conclusion of the matter, said
In another aspect of this context, according to Paulo, it is important to keep in mind that AI applications encompass various sectors of the economy, so that each of them would require specific regulations, being more reasonable the adoption of different governance measures, by way of example of what happens in the USA
Copyright and data mining
For the teacher, a regulation that exceeds the reasonable can stifle not only the potential, but also the ability of an entire community to advance and prosper. In light of this, one of the points discussed is how to balance the protection of individual and collective rights without hindering technological progress, especially in relation to data mining
According to Paulo, availability and data mining are crucial for the development of AIs, mainly for machine learning models, that require the exploration of large volumes of data. One of the examples of this lies in the field of large language models, as an example of GPT-3 and 4, bases for ChatGPT, that are trained on vast amounts of text from the internet, learning to generate human-like content, understand instructions, among others
The issue that is outlined, значить, as he informed, it is about the copyright on the data used for training. A disproportionate decision in regulation can hinder the development and use of AI systems that require the exploration of large volumes of data, involving text, audio and images. This would create even more obstacles for the domestic market, argued
In another view of this context, the expert pointed out that the issue of copyright has been widely debated around the world, with these technologies receiving numerous criticisms. For Professor Bermejo, it is necessary that there is a consensus, in the sense of the major manufacturers of these technological instruments reaching an agreement with content creators, in case of violation of intellectual property
Finally, according to the expert, the training of language models in Portuguese is a key point, because although commercial models like Gemini and ChatGPT "speak" our language, often this happens through translations, so it can result in biased and incorrect answers. On the other hand, Brazilians also produce a large volume of data, that are targeted by foreign "big techs", capable of training large artificial intelligence models, so they would be profitable alternatives within this market, with an AI that was genuinely Brazilian
