PATH-AI is a UK-Japan collaboration that will develop and pilot a methodology for inter-cultural co-design of a culture- and human-centric framework for more ethical and equitable human-AI ecosystems. This project is a cooperation between The Alan Turing Institute, the University of Edinburgh, and RIKEN – Japan’s largest comprehensive research institution, and is supported by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST).

 

Our goal is to expand current AI ethics and governance discussions to include human- and culture-centred international views. The project will study the concepts of privacy, agency and trust from a comparative and intercultural perspective focusing on Japan and the UK, and it will aim to contribute to the shaping of the international landscape for AI ethics and governance. We will rely on an experienced and multidisciplinary international team of researchers to build the first of its kind intercultural co-designed framework of this sort. Additionally, responding to the societal challenges raised by the use of data-intensive digital technologies during the COVID-19 pandemic, we will examine how the complex interplay of privacy, agency and trust has impacted public health responses in Japan and the UK. We believe that much can be learned by holding the human response to the current global public health crisis under a comparative and interculturally-sensitive light.

 

Ultimately, we will endeavour to lay the foundations for international dialogue on regulating and governing AI, including social and cultural policies and technical requirements and standards. This dialogue will be facilitated through our multilingual research, a cultural exchange that will encourage experiential learning through art, and stakeholder working groups engaging in the co-design of policy recommendations for the equitable and ethical development and deployment of AI. The project runs from January 2020 to the end of 2022.