EVENT

Thursday, 13 March, 2025, 16:00-18:00

The Global Partnership on AI (GPAI), established in June 2020, is an international initiative for the responsible development and use of AI based on the concept of “human-centered.” The GPAI has several working groups, one of which discusses the “Future of Work.” As part of this group’s project, an international interview survey is being conducted around the world to find out how our work will change as AI is introduced into the workplace. One of the unique methods of this survey is that the students who will be responsible for the future are interviewing companies and organizations.
At this event, following the survey report last year, we will introduce an overview of the survey conducted this year. Inviting students and faculty members who joined in this year’s project to share their observations on the “future of work” through the survey, we also discuss the possibilities and challenges of its methodological aspects. We would like to discuss future developments of the survey with companies, organizations, and students who are interested in this work.

Monday, 17 March 2025, 3:00 - 4:30 pm (Doors open: 2:00 pm)

Today, digital networks provide us with an abundance of information. We invest more than ever in education and science. Despite these achievements our mental, socio-economic and political conditions have not improved. They seem to be even deteriorating. Why? What is going wrong? What can we do better? What can the first information revolution 600 years ago teach us? Two leading Japanese scholars in the field of media and AI governance will discuss these questions with Yuval Harari, the world-famous thinker and best-selling author, who explores the risks and opportunities of the information age in his new book Nexus.

Wednesday, 19 March 2025, 12:00-13:00 JST

At the University of Tokyo, a webinar was held on December 11, 2024 and January 15, 2025, to explain the EU AI Act and the first draft of the CoP. In this webinar, we will provide an overview of the third draft released at the end of February and highlight important points that Japanese companies should particularly pay attention to.

Friday, 4 April, 13:00–14:30 JST

In this richly-illustrated lecture, I discuss two collaborative partnerships in which I have been involved with historically marginalized, Indigenous communities in both the Himalayan region and in Native North America who are working to preserve and revitalize their languages. Through the presentation, I explore these three words: Collect, Protect, Connect.

Wednesday, April 9, 2025 JST 15:00-16:30 JST

Despite the enthusiasm they generate, it is difficult to satisfactorily identify what humanoid robots could do that a human or a non-humanoid robot could not do better and more cheaply, and this observation constitutes a major challenge for the philosopher. Using the example of Sophia, the first humanoid robot to be granted citizenship in 2017, I will suggest that these strange machines occupy a sensitive place in our societies by taking on the role of messianic machines (machines that announce the coming of other machines), metaphysical machines (machines that force us to ask fundamental metaphysical questions such as knowing who is human or who is alive) and conjuring machines (machines that help to fight against the fear of dangerous machines).

Wednesday, 16 April, 10:00–11:30 JST

The “Black Death” refers to the peak of the second plague pandemic, which spread across Europe from 1347. It remains the greatest demographic catastrophe in history. Today, interdisciplinary research—combining funerary archaeology, anthropology, microbiology, and environmental sciences—has transformed our approaches to it. Advances from DNA analysis to climate studies have contributed to a new understanding. Yet, the challenge remains: how to write a global history of a long-term event on a global scale? Though its precise geography is unclear, the plague’s routes trace the lines of force of connected worlds, mapping out a space that is discontinuous and global, like an archipelago.

Thursday, 8 May, 10:30–12:00 JST

World literature has been a reality since at least the nineteenth century. Texts travel across continents and cultures, translated from every language, taught in universities worldwide, and forming an emerging global canon. Never before have we been so free to read whatever we wish, from anywhere. Or so it seems. But is this true freedom, or merely a comforting illusion? What are the boundaries of this seemingly limitless literary exchange? This talk aims to explore those limits and propose a new approach to literature—a different way of reading texts, one that is either entirely new or, perhaps, simply old and forgotten. Welcome to the world library!

Tuesday, 12 July 2022, 1:00-2:45 pm (Doors open: 12:30 pm)

The war in Ukraine has shaken our confidence in peace and prosperity within Europe and beyond. What is needed to overcome such a crisis in international relations? H.E. Herman Van Rompuy, President Emeritus of the European Council, leads the discussion by sharing his insights on the future of Europe and Japan which will be followed by Q&A sessions with students and others.

Available Friday, 24 June 2022 after 5PM

In this event, disability advocates Judy Heumann and Mark Bookman discuss the past, present, and future of accessibility and inclusion in the United States and Japan. Touching on barriers in built environments, education, employment, and entertainment systems, as well as activist movements and anti-discrimination policies, the two help to highlight a path towards creating a more diverse society in which nobody is excluded.

Thursday, 23 June 2022, 4:00-5:30 pm (Doors open: 3:30 pm)

In 2022, we are commemorating the centennial of Marcel Proust's death with an extraordinary salvo of publications, exhibitions, and acclamations. “Proust is the man of the year,” advertised the Italian magazine La Repubblica on New Year’s Day. It gives us an occasion to evaluate the magnitude of his novel, Remembrance of Things Past or In Search of Lost Time, and also to compare this anniversary with the previous one, 1971, a century after Proust’s birth. His star hasn’t stopped rising.

Available Early June 2022 (on Tokyo College YouTube Channel)

It has been said that by executing algorithms in the same way, there is no difference between the human brain and AI (artificial intelligence). Is this really the case? What does it mean to be “human”? To be an “AI”? What can current AI do and not do?
In anticipation of a future in which humans and AI coexist, we discuss what we should keep in mind and what we can do to prepare.

Tuesday, 7 June 2022, 4:00-5:30 pm (Doors open: 3:30pm)

Why do we need to rethink about the way we study and make sense of global diplomacy? In this lecture, I explore how cultural approaches can illuminate important aspects of diplomacy which have not been adequately considered in much of the existing scholarly literature.

Friday, 20 May 2022, 12:00-12:45 pm (JST)/ Thursday May 19 at 10:00-10:45pm (CDT)

Tokyo College hosted a series of interviews with researchers about their efforts to promote equity for International Women’s Day in March 2021 and March 2022. This May, we would like to continue these efforts beyond Women’s Day and invite Ksenia Zolotareva, the Women@JP Career Pillar Lead at Google Japan, to speak about strategies for increasing female talent in the paid workforce in Japan.

Friday, 13 May 2022, 15:00-16:30 (Doors open: 14:40）

This talk describes three phases of globalisation that have occupied the last five centuries and their role in making the world we know today. The first two phases were associated with the rise of Western empires, which integrated large parts of the world through a process of compulsory globalisation. The third phase, which began after 1945, brought empires to an end and produced the current world order - and disorder.

10 May 2022, 3:00-4:30 pm (Doors open: 2:40 pm)

Recent years have featured the US-China trade war, the coronavirus pandemic, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, each of which we can consider “radically uncertain” events that were not in any real sense predictable. This lecture seeks to identify how these events fit into conventional frameworks for explaining the world, how these events might have changed that framework, what elements of the framework remain unknown, and how we should respond to this age of uncertainty.

Friday, 22 April 2022 (available from 4:00pm JST)

How is the Russian invasion of Ukraine being reported around the world? How do people perceive these reports? And how are governments responding? In this series, we interview experts on regions outside of the United States and Europe on issues surrounding the current crisis.

Wednesday, 20 April 2022 (available from 1:00pm JST)

How is the Russian invasion of Ukraine being reported around the world? How do people perceive these reports? And how are governments responding? In this series, we interview experts on regions outside of the United States and Europe on issues surrounding the current crisis.

Wednesday, 13 April 2022 (available from 1:00pm JST)

How is the Russian invasion of Ukraine being reported around the world? How do people perceive these reports? And how are governments responding? In this series, we interview experts on regions outside of the United States and Europe on issues surrounding the current crisis.

Monday, 11 April 2022 (available from 10:00am JST)

How is the Russian invasion of Ukraine being reported around the world? How do people perceive these reports? And how are governments responding? In this series, we interview experts on regions outside of the United States and Europe on issues surrounding the current crisis.