2022.Oct.26

REPORTS

Report on the 4th Science Cafe “Social Imaginary of AI in East Asia”

On Monday, January 17, 2022, Associate Professor Ai Hisano of the B’AI Global Forum participated in the forth Science Cafe, a public seminar held by the Institute for AI and Beyond. The Science Cafe is trying to disseminate various topics related to research to society in the form of dialogue between leaders of the Institute for AI and Beyond and science communicators. In this seminar, a dialogue was held on the topics of AI and society, including ethical issues and the social impact of technology development. Dr. Hisano, who received her Ph.D. from the University of Delaware, majored in the history of the senses, technology, and management. Dr. Shuang Lu Frost of Aarhus University, an internationally recognized expert in AI research, also participated as a guest speaker.

Dr. Hisano said that the theme of this seminar is “AI from a cultural point of view.” She emphasized that AI should be regarded as a cultural object because it develops under the influence of culture, and AI also influences the development of culture. She also explained that the purpose of this seminar is to introduce trends in AI research and applications in the current business field and, finally, to discuss the role of researchers in the humanities and social sciences in AI research. In the presentation that followed, Dr. Frost introduced the different perspectives on AI between Elon Musk (CEO of Tesla) and Jack Ma (Co-founder of Alibaba Group) and how the term “black technology” came to be used in China. She argued that perspectives on AI were created within a cultural context.

The dialogue was followed by a Q&A session in which Dr. Frost and Dr. Hisano answered questions from the audience. The questions gathered through the chat room were translated into English by the facilitator. In response to the question of whether there are specific cases where the usage of AI has changed depending on the society, Dr. Frost cited the example of AI used to identify people in close contact with coronavirus infections in China. She noted that it would be difficult to implement policies to monitor individuals in Europe, where is sensitive to restrictions on individual freedom. Conversely, regarding the impact of AI on culture, Dr. Hisano gave an example of a start-up in the food industry that provides an algorithm that recommends a combination of food and beverage. She warned that such technology could standardize the human senses. She added that we must consider whether technology enriches the senses and who decides what the perfect taste is. On the other hand, Dr. Frost mentioned the issue of the personalized pricing recommender system as an example of AI technology that could have a significant impact on consumer culture. Finally, Dr. Hisano stated that the accusation that “researchers in the humanities and social sciences only criticize” is a misconception. She also argued that researchers in the humanities and social sciences need to interact more actively with engineers to dispel this kind of misperception. Dr. Frost also argued that more classes should be given to the university’s engineering department to teach the social scientific way of thinking including ethics.