_*INVITATION*_

We kindly invite you to the debate on

*Artificial Intelligence and the Future of the Portuguese Language*

which will take place on March 15, 2024, from 10h30 to 12h00 (Lisbon time) as part of PROPOR 2024 - 16th International Conference on the Computational Processing of the Portuguese Language.

As a plenary session of this conference, it will count on the contributions from the researchers who are experts in this field gathering here.

It will also include contributions from guests who are experts in the field of public policies for language promotion and who will help launch the debate:

*Ana Paula Laborinho* Former President of the Camões Institute for Cooperation and Language, current Director in Portugal of the OEI Organization of Ibero-American States, and professor at the University of Lisbon, Faculty of Letters

*Claudio Pinhanez* Deputy Director of the C4AI Artificial Intelligence Center in São Paulo, and principal investigator at IBM Research, Brazil

*Ismael Gómez García* Director of the OEI's Global Digital Strategy

*Valentín García* Secretary General for Language Policy, Galicia Regional Government

*António Branco**(moderator)* Honorary President of the ELRA Language Resources Association, Director General of PORTULAN CLARIN Research Infrastructure for the Science and and Technology of Language, and Professor at the University of Lisbon, Faculty of Sciences

Information about this debate can be found here https://propor2024.citius.gal/index.php/discussion-panel/ where in due course, it will be made available the way to participate.

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_*BACKGROUND*_

For about a year now, it's been a rare day when we don't come across news, comments, opinions, interviews, debates, podcasts, prognoses, plans, panics, condemnations, glorifications, warnings, regulations, fears and hopes about Artificial Intelligence. We are living the privilege, rare in human history, to find ourselves facing the unprecedented promises and challenges of a civilizational transformation induced by a technological shock of a scope never before experienced.

This scientific and social tsunami has its origins in what for decades has been considered the subarea of AI with the most difficult and challenging interdisciplinarity. Also known as natural language processing, computational linguistics, computational language processing, etc., language technology deals the most distinctively human cognitive capacity.

No area of human activity will be immune to this technological shock. Even less so will the very object of its scientific inquiry, natural languages. It is opportune to hold a debate on AI and the Portuguese language by the scientists themselves, and inverting the perspective of passive analysis to that of building an active contribution:

What is the impact on the future of the the Portuguese language and on citizenship and sovereignty in the age of artificial intelligence? What is the impact on public policies promoting language and how should they be rethought and reconfigured? What is the impact on public policies promoting science and technology and how should their priorities be rethought and reconfigured? What is the role of international cooperation, given that the Portuguese is a multicentric language with global projection? What should we learn from the responses are being advanced in other geographies and for other languages? etc

The scientific community dedicated to research into the Portuguese language technology has been meeting every other year for 30 years, alternately in Portugal and Brazil, at the PROPOR international conference, which will be held again soon, between March 13 and 15, 2024, the first time it will be held in another geopgraphy: https://propor2024.citius.gal

With the help of guest speakers who are experts in the fields of language promotion and international cooperation, scientific researchers in this field will try to open up this reflection and contribute to finding answers to these questions in a debate that will take place on March 15, 2024 between 10h30 and 12h00 (Lisbon time).

Information on this debate can be found here https://propor2024.citius.gal/index.php/discussion-panel/ where in due course, it will be made available the way to participate remotely, as technical conditions allow. The debate will take place in Portuguese.