The 5th BAIRAL Research Meeting for 2021 Report on “Information Visualization Technology and Its Application to Web and AI”

Lim Dongwoo (2021 Research Assistant of the B’AI Global Forum)

・Date: Tuesday, 9 November 2021, 19:00-20:30 (JST)
・Venue: Zoom Meeting (online)
・Language: Japanese
・Takayuki Itoh (Professor, Ochanomizu University)
・Moderator: Lim Dongwoo
(Click here for details on the event)

On Tuesday, November 9, 2021, the fifth meeting for 2021 of the study group “BAIRAL” hosted by research assistants of the B’AI Global Forum was held online. We invited Professor Takayuki Itoh of Ochanomizu University, who has been investigating visualization and multimedia. At this meeting, he gave a presentation on “Information Visualization Technology and Its Application to the Web and AI”.

Prof. Itoh explained the definition of visualization and its applications in Japan and abroad, and then talked about how to utilize them for research in the humanities and social sciences. Examples of applications included human relations networks such as a thesis collaboration network and a Twitter’s retweet network. He also explained a Twitter visualization in a VR space that mimicked Tokyo Disneyland.

Prof. Itoh emphasized the integration of arts and sciences and the use of AI to solve gender problems. He also introduced the Center for Interdisciplinary AI and Data Science, which was established at Ochanomizu University to promote AI-related joint research and industry-academia collaboration, as well as university-wide data science education. He explained that the Institute for Gendered Innovations will also be set up to address the key issue of eliminating gender bias through AI and data science.

In this research meeting, a service called CommentScreen was utilized, in which comments and pictograms posted by the participants during a online meeting were displayed on the screen to share their reactions in real time. Prof. Itoh used this service to check reactions and questions from the audience and answered them immediately.

The use of AI for solving social problems and the integration of arts and sciences, which Prof. Itoh emphasized, are topics that are in line with the purpose of the B’AI Global Forum. It would be great if there were more opportunities for researchers from various fields to collaborate for interdisciplinary studies, as was the case of BAIRAL.