Introduction With advancements in communication technologies and internet connectivity, avatar robots for children who cannot attend school in person due to illness or disabilities have become more ...widespread. Introducing these technologies to the classroom aims to offer possibilities of social and educational inclusion. While implementation is still at an experimental level, several of these avatars have already been introduced as a marketable service. However, various obstacles impede widespread acceptance. Methods In our explorative qualitative case study we conducted semi-structured interviews with eight individuals involved in the implementation of the avatar robots AV1 in Germany and eleven participants involved with implementing OriHime in Japan. We analyzed and compared implementation processes, application areas, access and eligibility, and the potential and limitations of avatars at schools. Results We identified structural similarities and differences in both countries. In the German cases the target is defined as temporary use for children who cannot attend school in person because of childhood illness, with the clear goal of returning to school. Whereas in Japan OriHime is also implemented for children with physical or developmental disabilities, or who cannot attend school in person for other reasons. Discussion Our study suggests that avatar technologies bear high potential for children to stay socially and educationally connected. Yet, structures need establishing that grant equal access to avatar technologies. These include educational board regulations, budgets for funding avatar technologies and making them accessible to the public, and privacy protection standards that are adequate, yet do not create implementation hurdles that are too high. Furthermore, guidelines or training sessions on technical, educational and psychosocial aspects of including avatar technologies in the classroom for teachers are important for successful implementation. Since our Japanese cases suggest that expanding the area of application beyond childhood illness is promising, further research on the benefits for different groups is needed.
Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and brain science are going to have a huge impact on society. While technologies based on those advances can provide enormous social benefits, adoption of new ...technologies poses various risks. This article first reviews the co-evolution of AI and brain science and the benefits of brain-inspired AI in sustainability, healthcare, and scientific discoveries. We then consider possible risks from those technologies, including intentional abuse, autonomous weapons, cognitive enhancement by brain–computer interfaces, insidious effects of social media, inequity, and enfeeblement. We also discuss practical ways to bring ethical principles into practice. One proposal is to stop giving explicit goals to AI agents and to enable them to keep learning human preferences. Another is to learn from democratic mechanisms that evolved in human society to avoid over-consolidation of power. Finally, we emphasize the importance of open discussions not only by experts, but also including a diverse array of lay opinions.
Increasingly, national governments across the globe are prioritizing investments in neuroscience. Currently, seven active or in-development national-level brain research initiatives exist, spanning ...four continents. Engaging with the underlying values and ethical concerns that drive brain research across cultural and continental divides is critical to future research. Culture influences what kinds of science are supported and where science can be conducted through ethical frameworks and evaluations of risk. Neuroscientists and philosophers alike have found themselves together encountering perennial questions; these questions are engaged by the field of neuroethics, related to understanding of the nature of the self and identity, the existence and meaning of free will, defining the role of reason in human behavior, and more. With this Perspective article, we aim to prioritize and advance to the foreground a list of neuroethics questions for neuroscientists operating in the context of these international brain initiatives.
Neuroscience is a national priority across the globe necessitating engagement with the underlying cultural and ethical values that drive brain research. We offer a list of neuroethics questions for neuroscientists to advance and accelerate an ethically tenable globalized neuroscience.
ELSI is Our Next Battlefield Mikami, Koichi; Ema, Arisa; Minari, Jusaku ...
East Asian science, technology and society,
01/02/2021, Letnik:
15, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
ELSI refers to "ethical, legal, and social issues/implications" of science and technology (S&T). The term has been gaining currency in Japan over the last 15 years in the context of its national S&T ...policy. In this essay, we argue that ELSI will become a pivotal concept characterizing the relationship between S&T and social sciences and humanities (SSH) in the country, due particularly to the first-ever amendment to the S&T Basic Law scheduled in April 2021. And because ELSI is recognized as an area of work that STS scholarship should play a major part in, how the local STS community is going to respond to the change this leads to will have a decisive impact on the way in which the relationship becomes characterized. The government's persistent use of the term despite the criticism it has received reveals an assumption underpinning its S&T policy about the way in which the work of SSH contributes to S&T and helps to foster innovation. It is therefore important for the community to challenge such an assumption and reframe the role of SSH, if it believes in the societal value of its scholarship and the critical sensibilities that its research offers.
Health activities should be tailored to individual lifestyles and values. To raise awareness of health behaviors, various practices related to health education, such as interactive activities among ...individuals with different backgrounds, have been developed. Moreover, serious games have been used as a tool for facilitating communication. However, there have been few investigations that are based on the framework of the theory of planned behavior on the mechanisms of health-related behavioral intention change from playing serious games.
We aimed to investigate the mechanisms of behavioral intention change among various age groups after an intervention using a serious game to increase awareness of lifestyle-related diseases.
Adults, undergraduates, and high school students played a serious game, called Negotiation Battle, and answered a questionnaire-Gaming Event Assessment Form for Lifestyle-related Diseases-before, immediately after, and 2-4 weeks after the game. The questionnaire was composed of 16 items based on the theory of planned behavior. We used structural equation modeling to compare responses from the 3 groups.
For all 3 age groups (adults: mean 43.4 years, range 23-67 years; undergraduates: mean 20.9 years, range 19-34 years; high school students: mean 17.9 years, 17-18 years), perceived behavior control was the key factor of behavioral intention change. Immediately after the game, causal relationships between perceived behavioral control and behavioral intention were enhanced or maintained for all groups-adults (before: path coefficient 1.030, P<.001; after: path coefficient 2.045, P=.01), undergraduates (before: path coefficient 0.568, P=.004; after: path coefficient 0.737, P=.001), and high school students (before: path coefficient 14.543, P=.97; after: path coefficient 0.791, P<.001). Analysis of free descriptions after intervention suggested that experiencing dilemma is related to learning and behavioral intention.
The study revealed that the serious game changed the behavioral intention of adolescents and adults regarding lifestyle-related diseases, and changes in perceived behavioral control mediated the alteration mechanism.
The core of the digital transition is the representation of all kinds of real-world entities and processes and an increasing number of cognitive processes by digital information and algorithms on ...computers. These allow for seemingly unlimited storage, operation, retrieval, and transmission capacities that make digital tools economically available for all domains of society and empower human action, particularly combined with real-world interfaces such as displays, robots, sensors, 3D printers, etc. Digital technologies are general-purpose technologies providing unprecedented potential benefits for sustainability. However, they will bring about a multitude of potential unintended side effects, and this demands a transdisciplinary discussion on unwanted societal changes as well as a shift in science from analog to digital modeling and structure. Although social discourse has begun, the topical scope and regional coverage have been limited. Here, we report on an expert roundtable on digital transition held in February 2017 in Tokyo, Japan. Drawing on a variety of disciplinary backgrounds, our discussions highlight the importance of cultural contexts and the need to bridge local and global conversations. Although Japanese experts did mention side effects, their focus was on how to ensure that AI and robots could coexist with humans. Such a perspective is not well appreciated everywhere outside Japan. Stakeholder dialogues have already begun in Japan, but greater efforts are needed to engage a broader collection of experts in addition to stakeholders to broaden the social debate.
This study analyzes the value conflict of a paper on fan fiction writing that used online fan fiction novels as a source to extract and filter sexual expressions from text. The boundaries of public ...and private information are ambiguous because users are not always aware of or have agreed to the fact that their content is to be used openly. The case was complicated by the fact that the use of these data by researchers violated an unconsciously infringed upon right of a vulnerable community with a weak legal position. This paper describes the debate on this topic among researchers from engineering and humanities fields on whether the purpose of the research was ethically acceptable; how the systems can be embedded in ethical values; and what ethical, legal, social, and educational lessons are appropriate for governance of artificial intelligence (AI). Our analysis aimed not only to clarify the abstract concept of privacy but also to make changes to the submission guidelines for authors. We hope that our analysis contributes to the governance of ethical AIs and AI ethics on handling sensitive aspects of online activities.
As artificial intelligence (AI) is integrated into various services and systems in society, many companies and organizations have proposed AI principles, policies, and made the related commitments. ...Conversely, some have proposed the need for independent audits, arguing that the voluntary principles adopted by the developers and providers of AI services and systems insufficiently address risk. This policy recommendation summarizes the issues related to the auditing of AI services and systems and presents three recommendations for promoting AI auditing that contribute to sound AI governance. Recommendation1.Development of institutional design for AI audits. Recommendation2.Training human resources for AI audits. Recommendation3. Updating AI audits in accordance with technological progress. In this policy recommendation, AI is assumed to be that which recognizes and predicts data with the last chapter outlining how generative AI should be audited.
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