Dr Leonardo Bezerra

Lecturer in A.I/Data Science

Computing Science Stirling

Dr Leonardo Bezerra

About me

I have joined the University of Stirling in 2023 as a Lecturer in A.I./Data science. Previously, I worked at UFRN (Brazil) from 2017 to 2023 as an Assistant Professor. My Ph.D. degree in Sciences de L'Ingénieur et Technologie was obtained at Université Libre de Bruxelles (Belgium) in 2016.

My thesis on computational intelligence (CI) was seminal to my current research on data science (DS), artificial intelligence (AI), and their impact on socially relevant problems. Regarding DS, I propose and collaborate with applied projects with both the public and private sectors. Partners include the Brazilian Judicial Branch and Ministry of Education, as well as regional and (multi-)national companies in fields as diverse as retail, telecommunications, and energy. Concerning AI, I supervise graduate students on theses involving deep and automated machine learning, as well as the intersection of multi-objective optimization with other CI domains, such as multi-dimensional visualization and dynamic optimization. Most importantly, I have a deep concern for socially relevant problems, having for instance assisted in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic through science publication and communication, in an attempt to counter the intensive disinformation campaign held in Brazil.

I am currently applying for fellowships from the United Kingdom Research and Innovation (UKRI), with the help of senior colleagues from other UK universities. The goal of the project is to propose an end-to-end policy framework to be used by governments and AI developers alike to ensure that AI applications be devised and operated in an accountable way. In the initial part of this project, we will survey current and future relevant real-world examples, in addition to disinformation through social media, where the lack of appropriate AI regulation (potentially) incurs significant social damage. Next, our aim will be to survey the existing legal, economical, and technological imitations for an end-to-end accountable AI policy framework. At this stage, we will be able to propose a framework that overcomes those limitations, which we will evaluate using the relevant real-world examples previously identified. The contributions of this project are timely and will have a significant impact on society. Namely, the surveys envisioned should become central in the literature of AI accountability. In addition, the framework we will propose and its evaluation on real-world examples will be instrumental in the ongoing worldwide discussions on the regulation of AI applications. To maximize the impact of these contributions, we will create the Potentially Incurred Social Damage from Artificial Intelligence Observatory (PISD.ai), through which all project deliverables will be made publicly available and society feedback will be received.