The University of Minho has created an Augmented Human Intelligence Axis (AHiA) laboratory, inaugurated this Tuesday, which aims to "demystify the underlying fear" of technology, in order to "increase human intelligence" through the "dissemination of knowledge. The Councillor of Education and Knowledge of the City Council, Leonel Rocha, attended the inauguration.
In declarations to Lusa, the director of that laboratory, installed in the future pole of the University of the Minho (UMinho) in Vila Nova de Famalicão, César Analide, explained "in a world soaked in technology" the AHiA wants "to spread the knowledge with scientific base".
AHiA, co-promoted by the Synthetic Intelligence Laboratory from the ALGORITMI Centre and by the Humanity of Things, will have 15 elements that will "produce contents, programs and policies that aim the construction of a humanized digital and technological environment, centred in the knowledge dissemination".
According to that responsible, "it is necessary to conciliate technology with other areas, such as Health, Law, Humanities".
"A doctor has to be able to talk to someone who knows about technology, about computer systems. We will be available to help, in the context of the valences of UMinho, society with the production of solid knowledge for the understanding of technology, not as in the Hollywood context, but as an asset, a tool", he described.
The professor at the School of Engineering at UMinho explained that AHiA "arises within a research centre and wants to create an axis to increase human intelligence, putting it in confrontation with artificial intelligence".
The development of technology, he said, "leads to fear of the unknown, something that is inherent to the human being".
"We intend to produce valid knowledge about the use of technology in various areas but also to go further, to be proactive in helping society. We want to disseminate reports, assist in the production of legislation and participate in political decisions", he pointed out.
The laboratorial infrastructure of UMinho in Famalicão has 17 laboratories, of which eight are from the Biological Engineering Centre, five from the Electromechanical Microsystems Centre, one from the ALGORITMI Centre and three are multidisciplinary, where the Advanced Materials Technologies and Systems Laboratory is integrated.
SOURCE: LUSA 11-08-2021