Silver Pavillon in Kyoto. It’s not covered in silver, though.
NSFW
The week’s song is from Ane Brun.
YouTube has a live-version of her beautifully singing this song
that was originally sung by Alphaville on their album ‘Forever young’ that was released on 27 September 1984 - (almost) exactly 40 years ago.
The song doesn’t have anything to do with Japan, though.
Retrospect
Japan
I spent time at the LXXVIIe Session de la Société Internationale Fernand De Visscher pour l’Histoire des Droits de l’Antiquité at Osaka University. This was a very nice conference and a travel very far back in my personal history.
The side program was wonderful too, including visits of Osaka castle and a temple ceremony.
I went to Kyoto then and had a joint Seminar with Professor Tatsuhiko Inatani from Kyoto University. Klaudia - giving a marvelous presentation on female reproductive health, in particular menstruation apps and their legal implications - Theresa - mindfully reasoning about personality and personality rights in digital, AI supported, education - and Anna, Boris and Katja, skilfully introducing into our research project FairMedia - represented the department this time (remotely, from Vienna).
Tatsu spoke about their research on agile governance, autonomous driving and weak robots and was supported by very interesting insights from a psychology perspective, provided by Hiroko Kamide, and by some of his PHD-students.
The most important lesson for me was, how different Japanese (legal) culture is when it comes to subject-object relationships. Wheras Europeans have been trained - since, at least, the Romans - that there are persons (some humans) and things (everything else but persons) and that persons/subjects have (all) power against objects/things, the Japanese perception is more complicated. The relationship between persons and objects is perceived a bidirectional, not just one way, so that, for example, robots can be attributed of having (a different kind of) empathy. This, of couse, has substantial implications for the concepualisation of what AI is and should be allowed to do.
It appears to me - after the session even more than before - that many of the concepts taken for granted in the EU (such as the one that human dignity requires a human in the loop, see, for example, art. 22 GDPR and art. 14 AIA) are nothing more than regional and late consequences of the enlightment and the individualistic philosophy of, in particular, Immanuel Kant. This makes the often heard claim, that Europe would establish an avantgarde in properly regulating AI and the others would follow later due to a ‘Brussels effect’, look very strange, arrogant and - excuse my French - simplistic.
Prospect
There are busy weeks ahead.
#arsboni
We will have two sessions:
On Monday, at 16.00, right after my return (Oh, the irony!), I will speak with Harald Kapper about disaster warning systems in Austria (and will better not compare them with Japan).
Wednesday, 14.30 CET, will be dedicated to another perspective on strategic climate litigation - with Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Bergthaler - currently the dean at Johanes Keppler University Linz’ law school.
Commission ‘Democracy in Digital Societies’
The Austrian Academy of Sciences founded a new commission that will be launched on Thursday, October 10th. As I am one of the members, I will spend most parts of the day there.
There will be a public lecture in the afternoon. In her presentation “Digital Revolution: Cui Bono?”, Sophie in 't Veld, former Member of the European Parliament, will speak to us. Free entry, registration open and necessary.
175 Years of MANZ
The publisher will celebrate their 175th birthday on Friday. I will join the party, just in case you are there as well.
Apart from this, there will be some teaching and lots of meetings, due to the beginning of the fall term, including a first meeting of the hiring committee for a full professorship at the department.
Look and Feel
Japan
in general and (this time) Kyoto and surroundings in particulare are just breathtaking. The moment I am writing this, I am in one of the funniest hotels I ever saw - literally a (still fully operative) trainstation. They have a YouTube channel as well - and I am proud to be their third subscriber.
Let me share some (poor) snapshots with you, instead of trying and certainly failing to describe the many, many impressions this beautiful country and culture bring.
Lost in Translation
This is the perfect week to recommend one of my most favorite films to you: Lost in Translation.
Here’s the trailer.
Daisy
stayed at home and participated in the parliamentary election process too.
© Anna Forgó
Have a wonderful week!
Kind regards
Nikolaus (Forgó)