We held our Founding Symposium on Monday, 9 September 2024, from 14:30 to 17:00, followed by about an hour of informal networking. The venue was Incubation CANVAS at the artience headquarters on the 29th floor of Kyobashi Edogrand, Tokyo, and the event was also streamed on Zoom. It was free, held in Japanese, and organized by ALIGN, with support from academist Inc. and a venue provided by artience Inc.
ALIGN was founded in September 2023 and, after about six months of preparation, began full activities in research, community building and outreach in April 2024. The symposium presented our work so far and our plans, and brought together experts at the forefront of AI research and AI governance to exchange views on building a network for a future with AI.
- Part 1, “ALIGN’s Challenge: Creating a Field from the Nonprofit Sector.” Talks by Koichi Takahashi (Chair, ALIGN), Jun Sakuma (Professor, Tokyo Institute of Technology) and Satoshi Kurihara (President, JSAI), and a special lecture by Masaaki Taira (member of the House of Representatives), with a discussion with Kensuke Ozawa (AINOW) and Hiroshi Yamakawa (Director, ALIGN).
- Part 2, “Industry–Government–Academia Collaboration toward a Hopeful Future for AI and Humanity.” Talks by Toshikazu Fukushima (Fellow, Japan Science and Technology Agency) and Masahito Iida (Researcher, Mitsubishi Research Institute), a recorded address by Akiko Murakami (Executive Director, Japan AI Safety Institute), and a panel with Akiko Aizawa (Professor, National Institute of Informatics), Fumiko Kudo (Specially Appointed Associate Professor, Osaka University) and Hiroaki Sakuma (University of Tokyo / AI Governance Association), moderated by our co-founder Ryota Kanai.
Reports: Part 1 and Part 2. Videos are available in a YouTube playlist (in Japanese).