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.

Friday, 17 May 2024, 14:00-15:30 pm JST

The modern world's international landscape is shaped by an investment in anthropological difference since the emergence of "Europe" in the early modern era. This difference, distinguishing humanitas from anthropos, is anticipatory, guiding humanity's path as a regulative idea rather than a factual norm. It consolidates dichotomies such as Europe/Asia, West/Rest, and white/colored, fostering intricate affiliations. This lecture delves into the identity politics of whiteness, where individuals invest in European culture, Western civilization, and a race devoid of color. However, true belonging remains putative, only realized through contrast with the non-European, non-Western, and non-white.

Tuesday, 14 May, 2024, 16:30-18:00 JST

In this lecture, Prof. Dullin will discuss how Permafrost was invented as a scientific issue, while also being a natural and meaningful ground for the native communities living on it. Then, she will show how Permafrost took, at the turn of the 21st century, a political meaning in the search for sovereignty in different Arctic substates, such as Yakutia.

Friday, 10 May 2024, 10:30-12:00 JST

This lecture follows the Yamashiro-maru steamship across Asian and Pacific waters, innovatively reconstructing the lives of migrants who left Japan for work in Hawai'i, Southeast Asia and Australia in the late-nineteenth century. These stories bring together transpacific historiographies of settler colonialism, labour history and resource extraction in new ways. Drawing on an unconventional and deeply material archive, the lecture addresses key questions of method and authorial positionality in the writing of global history.

Thursday, 9 May 2024, 2:00-3:30 pm

The landscape of human evolution is marked by the diversification of archaic lineages, with various African populations having shaped the emergence of "modern" forms of Homo sapiens. Though "Green Sahara" climatic phases facilitated the migration of African populations, the expansion of Homo sapiens had little connection to environmental factors. This expansion saw the replacement of local populations and profound cultural transformations, ultimately resulting in the spread of a singular human species that continues to shape our environment today.

Tuesday, 7 May 2024, 10:00-11:00 am JST

Complexity questions the duality of existence, favoring multiplicity over singularity. In philosophy, Leibniz and Deleuze explored this intricacy. Mathematicians like Cantor, Gödel, and Turing delineated the boundaries of rationality. Freud and Lacan proposed the psyche's autonomy and symbolic realm. This ongoing discourse reaffirms metaphysics' relevance in contemporary thought, highlighting a preference for complexity.

Friday, 26 April 2024, 14:00-15:30 JST

Monuments mourning the deaths of wartime foreign laborers bring to mind two meanings of the term “dark” in relation to heritage: the commemoration of tragic episodes in history and the importance of little known, nearly hidden monuments to this history. What messages are conveyed at these doubly dark locations?

Wednesday, 24 April 2024, 15:30-17:00 JST

This lecture explores Saudi Arabia’s dedication to strengthening its ICT infrastructure to protect businesses and individuals from cyber threats. The discussion includes the Kingdom’s initiatives to reassess its cybersecurity capabilities, its investments in a vision of a digitally secure economy, and a strategic framework to position itself as not only a regional leader but also a global pioneer in collective cybersecurity.

Thursday, 18 April 2024, 14:00-16:00 JST

One of the most famous quotes from Montesquieu’s De l’Esprit des lois is: “China is thus a despotic state of which the principle is fear”. Before jumping to hasty conclusions driven by the present context, I suggest that we should start with delving into the history of the reception of Montesquieu’s thought and most famous work first in Meiji Japan, and then in late imperial China.

Wednesday, 17 April 2024, 10:30-12:00 JST

Museums are inherently for their visitors and exhibitions their unique medium of communication. In America's polarized era how can exhibitions engage the imaginations of our diverse publics while also inspiring a feeling of shared humanity?

Monday, 15 April 2024, 17:00-18:30 JST

The World Bank, the American government, and virtually all scholars agree that “Property rights are at the heart of the incentive structure of market economies” and that a “free and robust market can thrive only where property rights are accorded respect.” Drawing on empirical reality, I argue the reverse: that property rights must be destroyed for rapid economic growth and to realize the social benefits that growth can provide.

Thursday, 28 March 2024, 10:00-12:00 JST

In this event, we will host discussions with experts on overseas AI governance to delve into the trends in international AI safety and governance.

Monday, 25 March 2024, 05:30-7:00 pm JST

This talk traces the evolution of the idea of "rights" in the West and the notion of rights-talk, and then discusses Gandhi's thinking on rights, his philosophical, ethical, and political reservations about the idea of rights, and his anticipation of the Anthropocene.