2025.Mar.18

REPORTS

Report on B’AI Global Forum 5th Anniversary Symposium “AI and DE&I: The Future of Digital Humanitarianism”

On Monday, November 18, 2024, the symposium “AI and DE&I: The Future of Digital Humanitarianism” was held at the Fukutake Learning Theater. This symposium was organized to commemorate the 5th anniversary and to envision future initiatives of the B’AI Global Forum, which was established in 2020 with a focus on AI and social justice.

In the opening remarks, Atsushi Tsuda, Executive Vice President of the University of Tokyo, introduced the achievements of collaborative projects between the University of Tokyo and SoftBank and expressed hope for further cooperation in the future.

The first part of the symposium, moderated by Ai Hisano (Associate Professor, Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies), featured an introduction to the B’AI Global Forum’s activities over the past five years by Yuko Itatsu (Professor, Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies), the forum’s director, as well as two thought-provoking keynote speeches by Anita Gurumurthy (Director, IT for Change) and Steph Wright (Head, the Scottish AI Alliance). In their keynote addresses, these two internationally renowned figures in the fields of AI ethics and social justice raised critical issues regarding AI ethics and AI governance. They highlighted the growing prominence of “dataism,” which positions large-scale data as inherently authentic, objective, and accurate, overshadowing social injustices such as labor exploitation in the data industry.

The second part of the symposium was a panel discussion moderated by Grant Jun Otsuki (Associate Professor, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences), an anthropologist specializing in science and technology. The panel featured Gurumurthy and Wright, alongside Yasuko Kosaihira (Deputy Director, AI Strategy Office, SoftBank Corp.) and Heng Yee Kuang (Professor, Graduate School of Public Policy).

The panel discussion was highly engaging and lasted for approximately two hours. Perspectives from industry, international politics, and international law intersected with insights into poor development environments and limited educational resources, leading to a multifaceted debate on industry-government-academia-civil collaboration, the context-dependence of DE&I, and its relationship with environmental issues.

Each panelist presented sharp critiques, drawing on concrete and diverse case studies. Notably, discussions highlighted the excessive dependence on technology in the medical field, even when AI adoption is unnecessary; the lack of literacy among young people regarding the environmental impact of AI chatbots in daily use; the monopolization and distortion of innovation by unicorn companies through patents; and the significant power imbalance between the Global North and Global South concerning data governance. These were emphasized as urgent issues requiring immediate action.

In response to these critiques, practical solutions to break away from the current situation were strongly advocated. For instance, reinterpreting the essence of technology from interdisciplinary perspectives at the core of technological development to generate new visions; developing small-scale, practice-oriented AI tailored to regional challenges; utilizing generative AI in education in more creative ways; and establishing a shared AI narrative that enables open dialogue across all social strata. Through these approaches, alternative futures that promote the public good and the commons were envisioned.

In the closing remarks, Kaori Hayashi (Executive Vice President of the University of Tokyo), founder of the B’AI Global Forum, emphasized the necessity of generating visions and ideas to guide the AI ecosystem by critically reassessing dominant discourses from diverse perspectives.