Harmonizing Artificial Intelligence for Social Good

Abstract

To become more broadly applicable, positions on AI ethics require perspectives from non-Western regions and cultures such as China and Japan. In this paper, we propose that the addition of the concept of harmony to the discussion on ethical AI would be highly beneficial due to its centrality in East Asian cultures and its applicability to the challenge of designing AI for social good. We first present a synopsis of different definitions of harmony in multiple contexts, such as music and society, which reveals that the concept is, at its core, about well-balanced relationships and appropriate actions which give rise to order, balance, and aesthetically pleasing phenomena. The mediator for these well-balanced relationships is Takt which is an ability to act thoughtfully and sensibly according to the specific situation and to put things into proportion and order. We propose that the central challenge of building harmonizing AI is to make intelligent systems tactful and also to design and use them tactfully. For an AI system to become tactful, it needs to be able to have an advanced sensitivity to the specific contexts which it is in and their social and ethical implications and have the capability of approximately inferring the emotional and cognitive states of people with whom it is interacting.

Emotional AI, Ethics, and Japanese Spice: Contributing Community, Wholeness, Sincerity, and Heart

“…Ethics (Rinri) for Japan is indissociable from community-based perspectives, involving ways to order and maintain socially harmonious relationships. In relation to Society 5.0, a key Japanese policy development for embedding AI systems in everyday life, Berberich et al (2020) points to a 'convivial' society, in which humans and intelligent non-human information systems would live in harmony. Wong (2012) explains that for Confucians the principle of harmony stems from the ideal relationship between human beings and Heaven, which is harmonious rather than confrontation or divided.…”

“…This is facilitated by a view of nature (shinzen) that is more expansive than Western ideas that focus on the natural environment. This leads Berberich et al (2020) to propose that 'the addition of the concept of harmony to the discussion on ethical AI would be highly beneficial due to its centrality in East Asian cultures and its applicability to the challenge of designing AI for social good' (2020: 1). In Japan, the term for harmony is Wa, which Berberich et al (2020) argue to be the country's most important value.…”

“…This leads Berberich et al (2020) to propose that 'the addition of the concept of harmony to the discussion on ethical AI would be highly beneficial due to its centrality in East Asian cultures and its applicability to the challenge of designing AI for social good' (2020: 1). In Japan, the term for harmony is Wa, which Berberich et al (2020) argue to be the country's most important value. Derived from the Confucian ideal of harmony, yet interacting with Shinto and other beliefs regarding politeness, Wa developed its own character.…”

Proceedings of the 1st Workshop on NLP for Positive Impact

“…Furthermore, when discussing definitions of social good, we should bear in mind that what is considered to be a "positive impact" depends on the context and set of values. For instance, ethical concerns and guidelines are different according to different countries Berberich et al, 2020) and are not absent of social and political interests (Washington and Kuo, 2020). As a consequence, we must acknowledge the limitation of our analysis in this regard since we follow an Eurocentric perspective and focus only on ACL publications.…”

Cartography of Natural Language Processing for Social Good (NLP4SG): Searching for Definitions, Statistics and White Spots

“…Furthermore, when discussing definitions of social good, we should bear in mind that what is considered to be a "positive impact" depends on the context and set of values. For instance, ethical concerns and guidelines are different according to different countries (Hovy and Spruit, 2016;Berberich et al, 2020) and are not absent of social and political interests (Washington and Kuo, 2020). As a consequence, we must acknowledge the limitation of our analysis in this regard since we follow an Eurocentric perspective and focus only on ACL publications.…”