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Originally delivered as an intervention at the OECD Parliamentary Group on AI meeting, which took place on 2 December 2020.

At the start of 2020, my colleagues and I presented a bill on artificial intelligence (AI)—based on studies, laws of other countries and scientific articles—in order to lay down the principles, rights and duties for the use of artificial intelligence in my country, Brazil.

During its development, we focused on defining the fundamentals for the use of AI so it could be innovative without being discriminatory. Our purpose was not to create regulatory barriers or make it hard to advance this technology, but rather guarantee its evolution ethically, responsibly and with equity.

Among others, we have set as principles the centrality of the human being, transparency, responsibility, and accountability. The goals of this AI law would be to promote research and the development of ethical artificial intelligence, and foster the inclusive growth and well-being of society to name only two.

Our idea was to introduce this subject in our parliament and start a discussion with the society, government representatives and experts, and we are in fact doing this right now. At the same time, I created the Parliamentary Front of Artificial Intelligence with 221 members of congress to discuss AI with the key players. We want to understand its implications in every area, for example in sustainable development, policy making and even public health, as we are witnessing right now during the pandemic. After the sanction of this bill, we expect the Parliamentary Front to continue its job of monitoring the development of AI in Brazil by discussing and proposing updates in our national legislation.

We were not able to begin the regular discussions on this topic in parliament because of the coronavirus restriction measures in place, and our focus right now is to approve urgent solutions to this social and economic crisis. However, we have had several online meetings with companies, associations and civil society, not only about the development of AI in Brazil but also about our newly adopted law on data security. We discussed solutions for the use of personal information, and its relation with the right to privacy, and received a lot of ideas and suggestions to enhance our bill.

This year, we plan to launch the Parliamentary Front officially, inviting companies, associations and scholars, and begin compiling all of the available AI bills in order to improve our work on this important subject. We look forward to resuming this discussion, and introducing this subject to our society and citizens as best as we can.

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