Brazilian presidential candidate Augusto Cury said on Saturday that artificial intelligence will be central to his government if he is elected in October.
Speaking during an interview on the television news program Jornal Nacional, the Avante party candidate advocated reducing Brazil's current number of cabinet ministries, without specifying which portfolios would be cut, while creating a specialized executive secretariat for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics with high autonomy.
Cury also proposed establishing a dedicated Ministry of Public Security. He joked that Ronaldo Caiado of the Social Democratic Party could assume leadership of the new ministry, maintaining that cuts are necessary but that the public sector must be modernized.
Cury, a physician, psychiatrist and author, is competing in the October presidential election for Avante, a political party in Brazil. Jornal Nacional is the main nightly news broadcast on Brazil's Globo network. Caiado is a Brazilian politician from the Social Democratic Party who serves as governor of the state of Goiás.
Public sector automation and performance targets
Cury proposed replacing the recruitment of new civil servants with artificial intelligence and digital services to reduce state expenditure. He stated that if the government manages the administrative machinery responsibly and refrains from hiring additional staff, digitizing state functions will save enough money to cover public costs.
Addressing existing civil servants, Cury called for mandatory performance indicators across the public sector, which employs hundreds of thousands of workers funded by taxpayers. He said employees who fail to achieve adequate performance will be trained and equipped. He noted that performance evaluation is standard in small and large private companies, adding that criteria should measure whether staff serve citizens properly, possess appropriate reasoning for their roles, and use AI to optimize work processes.
Education and economic change
Asking what could happen to the economy over the next four or five years, Cury pointed to billionaire technology executive Elon Musk, noting that Musk does not state who will pay the cost of technological unemployment. Cury argued that Brazil must urgently train young people in doctoral programs for artificial intelligence.
Describing the changing global landscape as completely new, Cury warned that structural changes may leave little of the current system standing. He stated that while spending will be cut in certain areas, government investment in key technology sectors must be increased urgently.
