Arlindo Oliveira, full professor at Instituto Superior Técnico and the president of the Instituto de Engenharia de Sistemas e Computadores (INESC), will chair the Specialised Monitoring Committee established by the Council of Ministers to advise on activities related to the National Artificial Intelligence Agenda.
According to the order published on 16 January, this committee is ‘responsible for ensuring best practices in the development of Large-Scale Language Models [(such as AMALIA, which involves contributions from Técnico researchers)], ensuring compliance with ethical and security principles and for advising on the model’s potential applications across various activity sectors.’ Additionally, the committee ‘will also be responsible for advising on the drafting and implementation of the National Artificial Intelligence Agenda’.
‘It will be an interesting opportunity to closely monitor the development of the Agenda’s activities and to advise the government on how to maximise the involvement of the scientific and business community in this area,’ comments Arlindo Oliveira. The professor stressed that ‘Técnico is deeply engaged in educating professionals with artificial intelligence skills and several of its research centres, including the Instituto de Telecomunicações (IT), INESC-ID and the Institute for Systems and Robotics (ISR-Lisboa), are actively contributing to this field’.
The National Artificial Intelligence Agenda will be presented at the end of the first quarter of 2025, and is one of the initiatives of the National Digital Strategy approved by the government. Its main objective is to define the path for the development and application of Artificial Intelligence in the country.
Arlindo Oliveira recently launched the book ‘A Inteligência Artificial Generativa’ (‘Generative Artificial Intelligence’), published by the Francisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation. Associated with the publication is a Generative AI chatbot that allows to ‘chat to the author’. ‘Ask questions about the book, clarify doubts and immerse yourself in the challenges and opportunities of this technology, which is transforming the world. Here, AI explains itself in the words of Arlindo Oliveira’ – this is how the chatbot introduces itself.
Arlindo Oliveira is a full professor at Técnico, president of the Instituto de Sistemas e Computadores (INESC), non-executive director of Caixa Geral de Depósitos, researcher at the Instituto de Engenharia de Sistemas e Computadores, Investigação e Desenvolvimento (INESC-ID), member of the National Council for Science, Technology and Innovation and the Advisory Board of the European Parliament’s Science and Technology Panel (STOA). In August 2024, he was announced winner of the first edition of the Galp-Academy of Engineering Career Award, created to honour personalities who have contributed to the prestige and affirmation of Portuguese engineering.
In November 2023, he gave a Mastertalk on artificial intelligence, machine learning and bioinformatics at Técnico.
