• Paper

    Arisa Ema, Project Assistant Professor

Data, AI Governance, and COVID-19: Medium and Long-Term Perspectives for Asia

In response to the coronavirus (hereafter referred to as COVID-19) pandemic of 2019-20, various IT/AI technologies such as tracking app, contact confirming app, and facial recognition systems that automatically recognize images of appropriate social distances and urge caution are being promoted. However, these technologies raise concern about the balance between public benefits and individual privacy, and whether such measures will lead to new discrimination and prejudice. In Asian countries where the first wave of infection surged prior to other regions, various technical attempts have been implemented from an early stage, and measures are being taken with a view of medium and long-term prospects during the pandemic and beyond. We are now living in and with the pandemic and we have to reconstruct our relationships between technologies and environment.

The report focuses on Asia, particularly China, South Korea, Singapore, and Japan, where the infection spread first emerged.

Report

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Full paper(PDF)

Table of Contents

  • Ethics and Governance Perspectives to Fight Against Catastrophic Risks: From COVID-19 to Long-term Safety Issues of Artificial General Intelligence
    Yi Zeng, Kang Sun, Enmeng Lu
  • Harnessing technology to tackle COVID-19: Lessons from Korea
    Sangchul Park, Yong Lim
  • Singapore and COVID-19 control – a tale of 2 cities?
    Mark Findlay
  • Challenges of AI and Data Utilization and Governance in Japan Emerging from the COVID-19 response
    Arisa Ema

This report is the original English version of a special issue published by Information Processing Society of Japan (IPCJ) magazine, Vol.61, No.10 (Oct. 2020). This report was supported by Toyota Foundation Grant Number D18-ST-0008.

This report is based on a collaborative research of the following institutions:
» Technology Governance Policy Research Unit, Institute for Future Initiative, The University of Tokyo
» Centre for AI and Data Governance, Law School, Singapore Management University
» SNU AI Policy Initiative, Seoul National University
» Research Center for AI Ethics and Sustainable Development, Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence