Manouchehri and Cicardini Drive Agenda to Safeguard Children, Enhance Digital Education, and Demand Accountability from Major Platforms

Original article: Manouchehri y Cicardini impulsan agenda para proteger a niños, fortalecer la educación digital y exigir responsabilidad a las grandes plataformas

Deputy Daniel Manouchehri, chair of the Commission on Future, Sciences, Technology, Knowledge, and Innovation in the Chamber of Deputies, and Senator Daniella Cicardini, member of the Senate’s Commission on Future Challenges, Science, Technology, and Innovation, addressed the challenges Chile faces due to the rise of artificial intelligence and major technological platforms in a video posted on their social media.

“Who sets the rules? The owners of large platforms? Or Chile?” the two lawmakers posed in the video.

“Artificial intelligence will shift who has power and who holds wealth. Chile must protect its children, prepare its youth, and develop its own capacities. We need to set rules and also create technology,” stated Manouchehri.

The agenda outlines four legislative initiatives. In child protection, it aims to establish responsibilities for algorithms and digital designs that capture the attention of children and adolescents and prolong their time on the platforms. This project is currently under specific voting in committee.

Regarding education, the “Chile Código” project proposes to incorporate programming, computational thinking, and artificial intelligence into the school curriculum, along with tools to understand algorithms, their risks, and biases.

The Digital Address project seeks to ensure that platforms operating in Chile have a legal address and representative within the country, enabling them to respond to Chilean courts and authorities.

The fourth initiative regulates the creation and dissemination of deepfakes, realistic digital imitations of people’s images, bodies, or voices generated by artificial intelligence.

In this context, Senator Cicardini also highlighted the implications of automation on employment.

“Automation will change jobs and tasks much sooner than many anticipate. Chile must prepare now. If productivity increases, its benefits must also reach workers. We need training, job retraining, and dialogue among the state, businesses, and workers,” she emphasized.

Deputy Manouchehri added that “Chile must strengthen talent development, research, and the adoption of new technologies in companies, universities, and public services.”