*By Natalia Marroni Borges
With the accelerated advancement of technological development, our way of living, working and establishing social relationships has undergone significant changes. In just over 20 years, we have seen the proliferation of the Internet and social networks, the popularization of mobile devices, the expansion of cloud computing, and, more recently, the growing application of Block Chain, virtual reality, artificial intelligence and automation. . We are currently living in what can be considered the center of the digital revolution and, perhaps for this reason, it is challenging to structure a perspective view on the subject and provide clarity to these changes, their effects and opportunities.
One of the structures with the greatest reach – made possible by the joint use of different technologies associated especially with the volume of users – is that of digital platforms, which provide instant connection for people, companies and governments in different parts of the world and enable access to services and products quickly and efficiently. Through these platforms, work and consumption possibilities have multiplied, relations between companies and consumers have been transformed and new business models have emerged and have been consolidating over the years.
It is evident that the use of digital platforms in their different formats has implications in different contexts. As the disciplines do not necessarily accompany each other over time, we observe technology emerging while other important and necessary themes – among them law, psychology, sociology – are analyzed a posteriori, creating gaps that can be exploited in a bad way. intentional.
Examples of this are the spread of false news, the increase in diagnoses of anxiety, stress and depression, the increase in social isolation, the “uberization” of work, the misuse of data. As these platforms operate in virtual environments, it becomes more difficult for us to understand their medium and long-term effects and establish clear limits for their activities and responsibilities.
On the other hand, the potential of digital platforms in the development of the society we are building is undeniable. As is natural and expected, opportunities arising from technology are explored more quickly by the private sector, while governments, in general, are slower in adopting and using potentialities. In the Brazilian context, this reality is no different and is reflected in the massive adoption by the population of solutions such as Uber, iFood, Instagram, Twitter, Tik Tok, among many others created almost daily by companies around the world. However, it would be unfair to argue that Brazilian government digital platforms are on the opposite side of this reality – because they are not.
Although it occurs more slowly compared to the private initiative, we observe important advances in projects such as e-SUS, the Entrepreneur Portal, the Electronic System of the Citizen Information Service (e-SIC), the Unified Selection System (SISU), the Digital Traffic Card portal and the E-GOV platform. Reinforcing the relevance of the theme, ABES recently launched a specific working group to deepen the theme, associated with the regulatory committee and selected researchers for its Think Tank who should guide their investigations in this context.
These advances strengthen the understanding that the initiatives are of fundamental importance to boost the quality of the Brazilian public service – associated with the improvement in the relationship between the government and the citizen and, especially, with the structuring of organized, robust, “integrable” databases and that provide informed decision-making. Incidentally, this can be considered a major benefit from the use of digital platforms for governments: data.
In this sense, some opportunities still orbit the governmental sphere and a specific theme has been exponentially gaining strength, shape and projection: artificial intelligence, which has become a central theme for governments around the world. The use of AI in government projects has the potential to improve efficiency and transparency, as well as increase the quality of services provided to the population. We have good examples of successful initiatives in Brazil, such as the TCU “robots”, which work especially in identifying patterns for detecting signs of irregularities, assisting in inspection and control processes.
However, as expected, initiatives for the adoption and use of AI occur in a dissociated way, and the efforts made by each body end up remaining, to a certain degree, isolated. In this sense, a significant part of the bodies is oriented to identify ways to make the use of AI feasible – and by “paths” we mean suppliers, partnerships, infrastructure, consultancies, training, technologies, internal structure. To avoid different agencies working on similar solutions simultaneously – generating redundancies and rework – it is appropriate to consolidate this information in a unified platform.
A platform developed for this purpose will represent progress for the country, allowing different sectors of the government to access up-to-date information on ongoing projects, orchestrating efforts between different agencies with a consequent gain in efficiency and cost reduction - which, in the case of AI, can be tall. The consolidation of this information still has the potential to serve as a basis for necessary analyzes such as investment value, ROI, the maturity of Artificial Intelligence development, critical success factors, ethical dilemmas and how they were addressed. Similar initiatives can already serve as benchmarking, such as the “AI Watch” platform, which deals with the consolidation and analysis of information from AI projects in 29 countries of the European Union.
Projects of this size are robust and should, ideally, start small and gradually expand their activities in a structured and strategic way. However, we cannot lose sight of the fact that there are already technological structures in place to make solutions like this feasible and that the constraints are, for the most part, institutional. In a context of technological transformation that occurs faster than some government structures can keep up with, and, aware of this, it is important that we direct attention to the issue and take the first steps to pave this path.
*Natália Marroni Borges is a researcher at the ABES Think Tank, Researcher member of the IEA Future Lab group (linked to the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul – UFRGS), Postdoctoral student in Artificial Intelligence and Foresight and professor at UFRGS
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