New paper time: 'Emotional AI, Ethics, and Japanese Spice'
Our UK-Japan project is assessing what it means to live well with emotional AI. This involves the question of what ‘living well’ means in both Japan and the UK. This paper argues that there are lessons of global value for AI ethics for Japan, and the world, to be found from examining leading Japanese philosophers of modernity and ethics (Yukichi Fukuzawa, Nishida Kitaro, Nishi Amane, and Watsuji Tetsurō), each of whom engaged closely with Western philosophical traditions.
By introducing notions of community, wholeness, sincerity, and heart, Andrew McStay argues that (a) Japan itself may internally make better use of historic indigenous ethical thought, especially as it applies to question of data and relationships with technology; but also (b) that externally Western and global ethical discussion regarding emerging technologies will find valuable insights from Japan.
Unashamedly philosophical, the paper concludes with a practical distillation of four ethical suggestions, or “spices”, in relation to emerging technological contexts for Japan’s national AI policies and international fora, such as standards development and global AI ethics policymaking.
