In its 10th edition, NIC.br's methodology survey workshop debates the impact of Artificial Intelligence on data production

Held for the first time entirely online, the event featured 19 speakers from different areas and had a daily average of 231 viewers from 25 countries

How can Artificial Intelligence contribute to the production of statistical data and what will be its impacts in the area? These questions were the guiding thread of the 10th Edition of the NIC.br Survey Methodology Week, organized by the Regional Center for Studies on the Development of the Information Society (Cetic.br) of the Brazilian Network Information Center (NIC.br). The workshop, co-organized by the National School of Statistical Sciences (ENCE) of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), brought together representatives from the private sector, academia, government, and civil society. In total, there were 19 speakers — six of whom were keynote speakers — who reflected on data production and shared experiences related to the topic.

Broadcast in English and Portuguese, the series of webinars took place between October 5 and 9 and had a daily average of 231 viewers from 25 countries. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the workshop was held entirely online for the first time.

The welcoming of participants was led by the president-director of NIC.br, Demi Getschko, and the director of ENCE, professor Maysa Magalhães. The moderation was handled by Alexandre Barbosa, manager of Cetic.br, and Tatiana Jereissati, coordinator of Sectoral Studies and Qualitative Methods at Cetic.br.

The UNESCO representative, Sasha Rubel, a specialist in innovation and digital transformation of the information and communication sector, opened the series of lectures with an ethical and humanistic approach to Artificial Intelligence and pointed to the correlation between this technology and democracy.

"From UNESCO's perspective, democracy is not just about voting for your leaders, it is also about exercising citizenship daily. It's not just about having different voices in the discussion but also ensuring everyone understands the topic being discussed. It's not only about training hundreds or thousands of people to be programmers and engineers, but also about forming philosophers who discuss the ethical dimensions of Artificial Intelligence; training judges to work critically and understand the development of AI-based solutions in the Judiciary."

Sasha also mentioned UNESCO's work with different stakeholders from various regions of the world to design recommendations that affect the entire lifecycle of Artificial Intelligence, guiding it along a path marked by issues involving respect, protection, and promotion of dignity and human rights and fundamental freedoms. She further emphasized that this engagement of multiple voices, coupled with dialogue, is the best way to develop, sustain, and implement AI recommendations based on ethical and humanistic values.

She added that it's necessary to invest in training to ensure that, beyond technical knowledge, specialists learn about ethical, philosophical, and human rights aspects, and that it's also important to have multidisciplinary teams developing AI-based solutions.

Another keynote speaker, Alan Smith, head of data visualization for journalism at the Financial Times in the UK, shared the data visualization work being developed in the communication vehicle aimed at empowering the readership to overcome common barriers such as the difficulty of reading, interpreting, and understanding data.

"We are helping our readers overcome barriers to digital literacy. That is our mission." He explains that data journalism has been very relevant in engaging the public during the pandemic. According to him, a hub gathering information from different sources was created so citizens could better understand the COVID-19 health crisis, especially through infographics.

Meanwhile, professor Frauke Kreuter, director of the Joint Program in Survey Methodology at the University of Maryland (USA) and professor of Statistics and Data Science at Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich, spoke about new strategies and alternatives for data collection for the production of statistics in the context of COVID-19.

She highlighted that government agencies have already been reflecting on data collection in a different way, and on how to seek alternative sources for the production of these data. Finally, Frauke discussed these efforts and presented research examples that already use this new logic, both those aimed at the market and those related to data collection in the pandemic context.

In addition to the lectures given by the keynote speakers, 12 case studies within the various topics addressed throughout the week were also presented. All sessions are available on the NIC.br YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQq8-9yVHyOapv7KiYpw_hMHdZPWDMaYE.

NIC.br Survey Methodology Week        
Aiming to create opportunities for discussion and training in survey methodology, the NIC.br Survey Methodology Week reached its tenth edition in 2020. The meeting aims to promote training in quantitative and qualitative approaches used for the production and use of statistics related to Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), highlighting the importance of solid and rigorous methods of data collection and use among the data-producing and using community.

Among the topics that have already been presented at the meeting are the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development; Smart Cities and Digital Economy; Data Science, Big Data, and Artificial Intelligence, sampling techniques, questionnaire design and testing, among others.

"This workshop has been a fundamental space for debate and exchange of experiences between researchers, public managers, and representatives of civil society and international organizations. We hope to be together again in 2021 for another edition of the meeting, this time in person," emphasizes Alexandre Barbosa, manager of Cetic.br.

This content was automatically translated with the support of artificial intelligence.