For Moncecchi, machine learning, big data and artificial intelligence are part of "a key area" that "is probably going to define everything in the next 15 years". However, marketing sometimes leads to people ignoring or misunderstanding them.
"We have to try to get the smoke out of it in order to understand it properly. Especially because it is one of the areas in which countries today have the capacity to take them to develop," he explained. "The data industry is a reality. You can assume that all this is a mysterious, magical thing... With that vision you are naturally not going to be able to do it".
There are also those who express concern about advances in artificial intelligence. "To think that computers are going to go bad says more about us than it does about computers," Moncecchi reflected.
"Artificial intelligence is essentially learning from experience. What computers can do today is learn very well from past experience in specific subjects and apply it to new realities. But the future is not always the same as the past. What is unique about humans is that we are changing the future," he said.
"There is a techno-utopian view that technology is in itself something that can change the world. It doesn't. What changes the world is how we do or what we use that tool for. What changes the world is how we do or what we use that tool for. Politics. Like everything else we have, we can use it for good or for bad," the engineer said.
"Today the biggest use of artificial intelligence is in selling advertising. There has been a phenomenon of academic recruitment: companies are taking the big players. The most important references I know are at Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Tesla. It is not by chance that these are the companies that are on the rise. This is used for advertising, but it will gradually be used in other areas.
Artificial intelligence... Uruguayan?
According to the undersecretary of the MIEM, this area "is now being taken up by some companies in Uruguay". Moncecchi pointed out that there are companies that sell artificial intelligence services abroad. "We are in a good position. We have had a very strong academic background for several years. Within the Faculty of Engineering (of the University of the Republic) you have people in electronics, mathematics, computing... At the Pasteur (Institute) they are doing some experiments. At the ORT (University) I know there are others. They need to be promoted".
"We have a solid base, but we have to work a lot on the issue of technology transfer: how we move from academia to production. But it is one of the areas where this has been most successfully achieved: today the CUTI (Uruguayan Chamber of Information Technology) and IT companies are rapidly incorporating it. You see that the developments quickly correspond to what is being generated in the Faculty.
Education
For the MIEM undersecretary, the two most important challenges in this area are to train more people and to open up new markets.
"There are several initiatives at high school and UTU level but we need to consolidate a stronger education in science and technology. The same goes for the faculty: we want to encourage people to enrol in these kinds of things. There are social factors: you can't tell someone what to study, but you can promote it," he said.
According to Moncecchi, there are initiatives at the high school level linked to science and technology that can be "a way to attract kids who were leaving". "The challenge is to universalise. To transform what is learned in computer science into a launch pad to motivate young people".
Source: El Espectador
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