Panel Discussion

Audrey Tang

Digital minister of Taiwan

Audrey Tang is Taiwan’s digital minister in charge of Social Innovation. Audrey is known for revitalizing the computer languages Perl and Haskell, as well as building the online spreadsheet system EtherCalc in collaboration with Dan Bricklin.
In the public sector, Audrey served on Taiwan national development council’s open data committee and the 12-year basic education curriculum committee; and led the country’s first e-Rulemaking project.
In the private sector, Audrey worked as a consultant with Apple on computational linguistics, with Oxford University Press on crowd lexicography, and with Socialtext on social interaction design.
In the social sector, Audrey actively contributes to g0v (“gov zero”), a vibrant community focusing on creating tools for the civil society, with the call to “fork the government.”

Panel Discussion

Sputniko!

Artist / Designer / Associate Professor, Tokyo University of the Arts Department of Design

Sputniko! is a British-Japanese artist and speculative designer based in Tokyo.
She creates film and multimedia installation works which explore the social and ethical implications of emerging technologies, especially in the themes of gender and sexuality. She has recently exhibited her works in exhibitions such as the Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial (2019), “Broken Nature” at the Milan International Design Triennial (2019) and Setouchi Art Triennial, where she created a permanent art pavilion at the Benesse Art Site in Teshima.
Sputniko! is currently an Associate Professor of Design at the Tokyo University of Arts. From 2013 to 2017, she worked as an Assistant Professor at the MIT Media Lab, where she founded and directed the Design Fiction group.
Other than teaching, she became a TED Fellow and gave a talk at TED2019, and was also selected as one of Young Global Leaders (YGL) by the World Economic Forum in 2017. To date, Sputniko! has had her pieces included in the permanent collections of museums such as the Victoria & Albert Museum and the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa.

Congratulatory Remarks

Makoto Gonokami

President, The University of Tokyo

Professor GONOKAMI Makoto became the 30th President of the University of Tokyo on April 1st, 2015, with a six-year term. Prof. Gonokami was previously the Dean of the School of Science. He became a full professor in 1998 having joined UTokyo as an academic staff in 1983. He has held several appointments in UTokyo including the positions of Vice President (2012-2014), Director of Photon Science Center (2008-2014), and the Director of Institute for Photon Science and Technology (2013-2014). He is a member of the Science Council of Japan, and a Fellow of the American Physical Society (2012) and Optical Society of America (2013).

Congratulatory Remarks

Masayoshi Son

Representative Director, Corporate Officer, Chairman & CEO, SoftBank Group Corp.

In 1981, Masayoshi Son founded SoftBank Group Corp. (SBG), a global technology company that aspires to drive the Information Revolution. SBG and its portfolio companies cover a range of technologies, including advanced telecommunications, internet services, AI, smart robotics, IoT and clean energy. In May 2017, SBG announced the first major close of the SoftBank Vision Fund to support the transformational companies at the forefront of the Information Revolution. Mr. Son is also Chairman of SoftBank Corp. (the domestic telecommunications subsidiary of SBG), Director of Z Holdings Corporation, which owns Yahoo Japan Corporation, and Chairman and Director of the world’s leading semiconductor IP company, Arm Limited. Following the Great East Japan earthquake of March 11, 2011, Mr. Son founded the Renewable Energy Council, the Great East Japan Earthquake Recovery Initiatives Foundation and the Renewable Energy Institute. In December 2016, the Masason Foundation was established to provide an environment that enables youth with high aspirations and exceptional talents to develop their skills, and to support those who will create the future.

Special Dialog / Closing remarks

Teruo Fujii

Executive Vice President (President-elect) / Director of the Institute for AI and Beyond, The University of Tokyo

Dr. Teruo Fujii is President-elect of the University of Tokyo and will be starting his six-year term on April 1, 2021. He is currently Director of the Institute for AI and Beyond as well as Executive Vice President in charge of finance and external relations for the university. He also served as Director General of Institute of Industrial Sciences (IIS) of the university from 2015-2018. He received his Ph.D. in engineering from the University of Tokyo (1993) and after joining RIKEN Institute became an associate professor (1999) and professor (2007) of IIS.
Dr. Fujii was also an advisor to Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) from 2005 to 2008 and Co-director of LIMMS-CNRS/IIS, a joint research lab between CNRS, France, and IIS, from 2007 to 2014. He served as the President of Chemical and Biological Microsystems Society (CBMS) and organized its MicroTAS conference held in Okinawa in 2012.

Special Dialog

Junichi Miyakawa

Representative Director & CTO, SoftBank Corp.

Junichi Miyakawa is Representative Director & CTO at SoftBank Corp. (since 2018), and also serves as President and CEO of MONET Technologies Inc. (since 2019) and HAPSMobile Inc. (since 2017). Miyakawa’s past positions include Technical Chief Operating Officer at US-based Sprint Corporation (2014), Director, Executive Vice President & CTO of SOFTBANK MOBILE Corp. (now SoftBank Corp.) (2007), Director of SOFTBANK BB Corp. (now SoftBank Corp.) (2003) and Representative Director & President of Nagoya Metallic Communications Corp. (now SoftBank Corp.) (2000). Prior to these positions, in 1991 he became Representative Director & President of KK Momotaro Internet.

Host / Master of Ceremonies

Yujin Yaguchi

Professor, Graduate school of interdisciplinary, Special Advisor to the President, The University of Tokyo

Yujin Yaguchi is Professor of Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies of the University of Tokyo and serves as Special Advisor to the President for international education. He received his Ph.D. in American Studies and has been at teaching at the University of Tokyo since 1998. He also served as a Fulbright visiting scholar to U.C. Santa Cruz and the East-West Center (Honolulu). He has published and presented widely in Japanese and English on the intercultural dynamics of Japan-Pacific-US relations. His most recent publication in English is “Tolerance, Reconciliation, and Alliance of Hope: Pearl Harbor Narratives in Japan,”in Beyond Pearl Harbor: A Pacific History(University Press of Kansas, 2019). From 2015 to 2018, he served as an Associate Editor of American Quarterly, the flagship journal of the American Studies Association.

Advancement of Fundamental AI

Tatsuya Harada

Automated Learning of High Accurate Prediction Model from Limited Supervised Data

Prof. Harada is interested in research on visual recognition, machine learning, and intelligent robots. He studies to clarify the principles of real-world intelligence from a mathematical information standpoint, using pattern recognition and machine learning, and develop specific methods and applications for realizing intelligent systems that operate robustly in the open world.

Advancement of Fundamental AI

Junichi Tanaka

Problem-solving methods using complex AI

Professor Tanaka conducts high-energy particle accelerator experiments in order to elucidate the fundamental principles underlying the infinitesimal world of elementary particles. Through experiments using the ATLAS (A Toroidal LHC ApparatuS) detector at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) facility, Tanaka develops leading-edge computing technology applications for physical analyses.

Integrating Brain Science and AI

Yuji Ikegaya

Expanding brain functionality using AI

Professor Ikegaya is a brain researcher, a doctor of pharmacology, and director of the Exploratory Research for Advanced Technology (ERATO) IKEGAYA Brain-AI Hybrid Project. He is a specialist in the fields of neuroscience and pharmacology where he researches plasticity of the hippocampus and cerebral cortex. Ikegaya has written a number of texts on brain science for average, non-specialist readers.

Integrating Brain Science and AI

Kenichi Ohki

Development of highly reliable AI that utilizes brain activity data

Professor Ohki is a leading expert on functional imaging of neurons in the brain. He is a global pioneer in technology used to measure the activities of thousands of neurons, and he uses this technology to reconstruct brain information in AI. Ohki pursues a greater understanding of brain information processing in order to develop next-generation AI that functions similarly to the brain.

Integrating Brain Science and AI

Sho Tsuji

Applying insights from human infant learning to AI

In order to learn language, AI systems require extremely large quantities of data and are no match for human infants. Professor Tsuji focuses on the mechanisms behind why infants are so fast and efficient language learners by investigating the role of social interaction in this feat. Her goal is application of research insights to AI.

Integrating Brain Science and AI / Panel Discussion

Yoshiho Ikeuchi

Elucidation of brain functions using cybernetic brain structures

Professor Ikeuchi is involved in the creation of nervous tissue (organoids) from human iPS cells and this tissue's application in neural circuits in order to better understand the mechanisms of the brain. He has successfully developed technology used to connect nervous tissue via axon bundles and thus achieve a state similar to that seen in the human body.

Integrating Physics and AI

Eiji Saitoh

Analysis of materials' quantum properties using AI

Professor Saitoh is a global leader in the field of electron spin science, writing a new chapter in the history fundamental physics principles. Expectations are high for his efforts to develop materials and components based on design principles not seen in conventional electronics, and he has accomplished many things and earned numerous awards throughout the world.

Integrating Physics and AI

Hitoshi Tabata/p>

Next-generation AI devices that learn from biological fluctuations and achieve ultra-low electric power consumption

Professor Tabata develops unprecedented, novel electronic devices based on ideas from a wide range of fields including the life sciences, information processing and physical structures, with materials science at the core of these endeavors. He pursues new possibilities in electronics through the harnessing of biological fluctuations. Tabata is a fellow of The Japan Society of Applied Physics.

AI and Society / Moderator

Kaori Hayashi

Exploration of criteria and ethics, and pursuit of practical research, aimed at realization of a truly gender-equal society and guarantee of rights protection for minorities in the age of AI

Professor Hayashi is a researcher in the fields of journalism and mass media. Her research focuses on fairness in speech and expression venues as well as theory surrounding fairness/impartiality, and she specializes in areas including occupational ethics and comparative international practices in the age of journalism digitalization. She also devotes effort toward research undertaken from a gender-centric standpoint.

AI and Society

Yukie Nagai

AI x Tojisha-Kenkyu: Computational Neuroscience for Systematic Understanding of Cognitive Individuality

Prof. Yukie Nagai has been investigating underlying neural mechanisms for social cognitive development by means of computational approaches. She designs neural network models for robots to learn to acquire cognitive functions such as self-other cognition, estimation of others’ intention and emotion, altruism, and so on based on the theory of predictive coding. The simulator reproducing atypical perception in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) greatly impacts the society as it enables people with and without ASD to better understand potential causes for social difficulties.