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On Wednesday, June 26, at the Fujiwara Hiroshi Hall, Kyoseikan Collaboration Complex on Hiyoshi Campus, the Faculty of Science and Technology held a symposium as part of events to celebrate its 80th anniversary and to commemorate the 150th year since the birth of Ginjiro Fujiwara, entitled the "The Frontline of Cross-discipline AI use in the Humanities and Sciences."
This symposium, which was held for humanities and science students, as well as interested parties in education and industry, introduced Keio’s frontier AI research and completely new configurations of AI, as well as initiatives to foster advanced programming personnel. On the day, the 215 people in attendance included many from private corporations as well as faculty and staff members, who were joined by current Keio students with a deep interest in AI and persons from consortium partner companies.
Following an address by Professor Eiji Okada, Dean of the Faculty of Science and Technology, Professor Takahira Yamaguchi of the Department of Administration Engineering at the Faculty of Science and Technology began by giving a lecture entitled "AI Research in the World and at Keio." During the lecture, Professor Yamaguchi introduced the history of AI and gave an overview of IBM’s Watson and Project Debater and a self-driving taxi of Waymo, an automotive company developing for Google in the United States, as examples of the implementation of global AI technologies.
In addition, an example of on-site application in elementary school education of the humanoid robots NAO and SOTA, which use Japanese Wikipedia and ontology technologies, as well as an introduction of a near-future robot cafe were presented as case studies of initiatives at the Keio Advanced Research Center’s "AI and Big Data R&D Center" by Professor Yamaguchi.
At the Q&A which followed the lecture, the handling of data in machine learning (pre-processing) and the evaluation of learning outcomes (post-processing) was said to comprise 90% of work duties, while in regard to research currently undertaken in this field and AI education there was discussion of the potential to realize AI deployment in real experiences and the importance of identifying its limits.
Following this, Mr. Shigeru Shiina, an executive officer partner from KPMG Consulting, gave a lecture entitled "The AI Personnel sought by Corporations across the Humanities and Sciences." During the lecture, in addition to overviews on the history of AI, project configurations, and the skills required in AI personnel, actual business cases being implemented by the consortium on 1. Language and basic reasoning, 2. Practical and applied technologies, and 3. Schematics of seminars and lectures involving business, as well as business idea contests using AI were introduced. Mr. Shiina referred to the importance of the ability to think about the meaning of data and the capacity to create tangible objects, as well as the imagination and capacity to involve the necessary personnel, regardless of whether one’s background is in the humanities or sciences.
In the second half of the symposium, Professor Kohei Ito gave a lecture entitled "Introduction to the AI/Advanced Programming Consortium, in which all Keio students can participate" on behalf of the consortium, introducing the background to its launch, and its aims. He also introduced the AI rooms which have been established at Hiyoshi and Yagami; the process of creating the seminar syllabus by students; the role of the corporate members of the consortium; and details of the most recent advanced programming contest and ongoing plans. Professor Ito also touched on the government’s AI human resources strategy, and discussed his hope that cooperation between academia and industry based on a human resources model, whereby outstanding students teach other students who wish to learn while incorporating company needs, would compensate for the current shortfall in the teaching personnel required to meet the government’s targets for AI human resources.
Finally, 5 minute presentations by the below consortium members rounded out the symposium, which proved a valuable opportunity to convey messages on what students should be learning while at university based on introductions of case studies of AI deployment at respective businesses and portraits of the kinds of humanities and science AI personnel sought by corporations.
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