Avatars and Kids Together: Vol.1: Privacy Study Group Report 

Hi everyone,

I’m Kimie, a research member of the Moonshot 2050 Project led by Professor Fumio Shimpo.

I have created this corner just to let you know about our special research team; it’s a team which studies avatars and is led by a law professor; pretty cool, right!?!

Recently, we had a study meeting where researchers, lawyers, and university students from around the world gathered to discuss rules for AI and robots. Let me tell you what we talked about!

Professor Eric Heinze, from the University of London shared something really important about dealing with mean words and harsh opinions on the Internet. He said, “We can respond to bad words with good words.” For example, when someone writes something unkind, instead of just deleting it, we can say things like, “Those kinds of words can hurt people’s feelings”, or “Maybe, there’s a nicer way to say that?” In these ways, we can all think and talk about it more happily together.

This is super important when we’re using avatars to talk on the Internet. So, instead of just deleting posts or banning people, how about thinking about together, “How can we talk nicely to each other?”

Next, Mr Luca Munn from Australia, also talked about some important rules for AI. Right now, there are rules about ‘what not to do’, and ‘what to be careful about’, when making AI. However, there’s a problem with these rules. Want to know what it is?

The current rules are mostly based on what Europeans and Americans think, and they don’t include many important ideas from other parts of the world. For example, the Maori people in New Zealand have beautiful ideas about connecting with nature and other people. So, if we include Maori ideas when making AI, we might be able to make better AI!

In other words, we shouldn’t forget that, there are lots of different ways of thinking in the world, and they’re all important. 

So, when making rules for AI, it’s better to listen to ideas from people from all around the world.

What do you think about this?