The Open Forum for Humanities and Technology: Humanities Meets Technology was jointly held by the Graduate School of Convergence Science and Technology at Seoul National University and the Korea Information Society Development Institute (KISDI) at Seoul National University Museum of Art on September 3.

The forum was organized to discuss the current trends and future direction of artificial intelligence devices, which are now easily found in everyday life, and share different views and thoughts on their economic and industrial impact as well as related humanities and social science issues.

With Professor Lee Joong-sik of the Graduate School of Convergence Science and Technology at Seoul National University as a moderator, Professor Zhang Byoung-tak of the School of Computer Science and Engineering & Cognitive Science, Brain Science and Bioinformatics at Seoul National University delivered a fascinating lecture and Professor Jang Dayk of the College of Liberal Studies at Seoul National University participated in the following discussion.

Professor Zhang outlined the recent trends in artificial intelligence technologies, such as IBM Watson, Google’s driverless car, Savioke’s robot butler, and Softbank’s Pepper, using various visual materials and suggested a direction of the future society where human beings and artificial intelligence live side by side. Professor Jang also shared his thoughts on ethical and moral issues raised from the emergence of autonomous machines capable of making decisions, on unemployment, and on threats to the survival of mankind due to the evolution of artificial intelligence from a humanities and social sciences perspective and discussed with the audience what the future society holds for humans as we will live together with machines that have the ability to empathize.
 
Contact: Lee Si-jik, Researcher, Department of Information Society Research (Tel: 043-531-4357)