Karina Gibert, the Figueres native whose nun led her toward science and AI

BarcelonaThis week the plenary activity has returned and it has been the occasion to announce the names of the award winners with the Gold Medal of the Parliament. The Federation of Athenaeums of Catalonia and the expert in artificial intelligence (AI) have received an award. She is a key figure in this technology in the Principality and has participated in numerous studies carried out thanks to the technology, in addition to providing advice to multiple governments around the world, such as in Catalonia, Spain, the European Commission and the Commonwealth, as well as the WHO.

Recognized by the panel headed by its president, Josep Rull, she still remembers how her 35 years of experience with AI were applauded in the middle of a presentation for the entire body of auditors of Catalonia on the opportunities of this technology at the time when the president of the chamber made the NOW. A professor at the UPC, the doctor in computer science and dean of the Official College of Computer Engineering of Catalonia is still "knocked out" by the award for her professional career with a social perspective, which has contributed to public health, with improvements in the treatment of diseases. She has worked closely with the Guttmann Institute to understand the differences between rehabilitation and introduction processes. Likewise, in the midst of the pandemic, she produced a report using AI to prevent overflows in social services and concluded that the main impact of that period was on mental health. Her research group also promoted the regeneration of the Besòs River, thanks to the application of AI, and Gibert recently won a Marie Curie doctoral network for coordinating fifteen doctoral theses on improving the water cycle.

The daughter of a family of women from Figueres—a separated mother and a widowed grandmother—she grew up among corsets in a family lingerie shop. She liked "literature, reading, and logic," and when she finished primary school, Sister Angela, the head nun at the Colegio San Vicente de Paúl, was shocked when her mother told her about the plan for her to study law. "If this girl studies chemistry or math, I'll help her get a scholarship," said the sister. After painstakingly researching a computer science degree, she came into contact with AI while studying and joined a research group on AI and data. But her mother thought she'd end up working for Banc Sabadell, "to computerize the banks in Figueres."

Advise and warn

Gibert was an advisor in the Digital Policy Department since 2018, part of the team of experts for the Catalan AI strategy. And there, she did everything possible to ensure the creation of a university degree specializing in AI, which this year already has its first class. That experience spread the word, leading her to become an advisor in several countries. The academic also participated, on behalf of the Scientific Commission for AI in Catalonia, in a declaration on the technology in which she was the first group in the world to "call for caution in business economic development," at a time when generative artificial intelligence—like ChatGPT—had not yet emerged.

"Generative AI can get out of control; everyone has it in their pocket, and it creates dangers," she maintains, while trying to disseminate its advantages and limitations—as she speaks well, but it is not designed to solve problems or be an encyclopedia. As a key woman in the sector, she has dedicated herself to reducing the gender gap, also with numerous courses and initiatives. "With the help of AI, knowledge can be extracted from data that speaks of complex phenomena, and by understanding them, decisions can be made to improve things," he asserts. It is one of the hundred most influential women of the country according to the magazine Forbes and had already won several awards such as the national computer engineering award for digital dissemination in 2022.