International Symposium: AI and Democracy 国際シンポジウム：AIと民主主義

As social disparities become more problematic, information technology, including artificial intelligence (AI), can be a cause of the growing divide, or conversely, a tool that contributes to democracy. How will values such as human rights and sustainability in democracy be extended when AI is designed not only to support decision making but also to intervene in ethical and political decision makings? In this symposium, we will raise questions and explore issues on the theme of AI and democracy in depth through discussions between researchers from France and Japan.

Panelists: Vanessa Nurock, Akira Inoue and Alesandre Gefen
Moderator: Hideaki Shiroyama, Institute for Future Initiatives, Graduate Schools for Law and Politics, and GraSPP, UTokyo

Vanessa Nurock a researcher at LEGS (Laboratoire d’Études de Genre et de Sexualité; Laboratory for Gender and Sexuality Studies) and an associate professor of political theory and ethics at the Université Paris 8. She he is the chairholder of the UNESCO Chair EVA dealing with Ethics of the Artificial and Living beings. Her work is situated at the intersection of ethical, political, and scientific issues, with a particular emphasis on questions of gender and education. She has worked on topics such as justice and care, animal ethics, nanotechnology, cybergenetics, and neuroethics. Her current research focuses on the ethical and political problems raised by artificial intelligence. Among her last publications are a special issue of the Academic Journal Cités on the ethical and political issues raised by Artificial Intelligence and several articles dealing with gender issues in AI or an AI ‘ethical by design’ (Nurock, Chatila, Parizeau “What does ‘ethical by design’ mean? 10.1007/978-3-030-69128-8_11).

Akira Inoue is Associate Professor of Political Philosophy at the Department of Advanced Social and International Studies, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Tokyo, Japan. Inoue works in the theories of justice and democracy. He also works on experimental research in normative political theory and the history of contemporary political philosophy. His publications include “Rawlsian Contractualism and Cognitive Disabilities,” in Edwin E. Etieyibo (ed.) Perspectives in Social Contract Theory, Washington, DC: Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 2018, pp. 155-177, “Justice, Fairness, and Deliberative Democracy in Health Care,” in Akira Akabayashi (ed.) The Future of Bioethics: International Dialogues, New York: Oxford University Press, 2014, pp. 579-585. He has also published in Australian Journal of Legal Philosophy, Australian Journal of Political Science, Journal of Ethics ＆ Social Philosophy, Journal of Value Inquiry, Law and Philosophy, Public Health Ethics, Review of Philosophy and Psychology, and so on.

Alexandre Gefen is Directeur de recherche at CNRS (UMR Thalim/University Paris 3 - Sorbonne nouvelle). Founder of Fabula.org, he has written on contemporary literature and the history of ideas, writing and digital humanities. He currently works on Artificial Intelligence and its cultural dimensions. He is also Scientific Deputy Director of the Institute of Human and Social Sciences of the CNRS where he is in charge of interdisciplinarity.