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Taming AI: Engineering, Ethics, and Policy
(Professor Lee, Professor Koene, Professor Walsh, and Professor Ema (from left))
Can AI-powered robotics could be adequate companions for humans? Will the good faith of users and developers work for helping AI-powered robots become the new tribe of the digital future?
AI’s efficiency is creating new socio-economic opportunities in the global market. Despite the opportunities, challenges still remain. It is said that efficiency-enforcing algorithms through deep learning will take an eventual toll on human dignity and safety, bringing out the disastrous fiascos featured in the Terminator movies.
A research group at the Korean Flagship AI Project for Emotional Digital Companionship at KAIST Institute for AI (KI4AI) and the Fourth Industrial Intelligence Center at KAIST Institute co-hosted a seminar, “Taming AI: Engineering, Ethics, and Policy” last week to discuss ways to better employ AI technologies in ways that upholds human values.
The KI4AI has been conducting this flagship project from the end of 2016 with the support of the Ministry of Science and ICT.
The seminar brought together three speakers from Australia, Japan, and the UK to better fathom the implications of the new technology emergence from the ethical perspectives of engineering and discuss policymaking for the responsible usage of technology.
Professor Toby Walsh, an anti-autonomous weapon activist from New South Wales University in Australia continued to argue the possible risk that AI poses to malfunction. He said that an independent ethics committee or group usually monitors academic institutions’ research activities in order to avoid any possible mishaps.
However, he said there is no independent group or committee monitoring the nature of corporations’ engagement of such technologies, while its possible threats against humanity are alleged to be growing. He mentioned that Google’s and Amazon’s information collecting also pose a potent threat. He said that ethical standards similar to academic research integrity should be established to avoid the possible restricting of the dignity of humans and mass destruction. He hoped that KAIST and Google would play a leading role in establishing an international norm toward this compelling issue.
Professor Arisa Ema from the University of Tokyo provided very compelling arguments for thinking about the duplicity of technology and how technology should serve the public interest without any bias against gender, race, and social stratum. She pointed out the information dominated by several Western corporations like Google. She said that such algorithms for deep learning of data provided by several Western corporations will create very biased information, only applicable to limited races and classes.
Meanwhile, Professor Ansgar Koene from the University of Nottingham presented the IEEE’s global initiative on the ethics of autonomous and intelligence systems. He shared the cases of industry standards and ethically-aligned designs made by the IEEE Standards Association. He said more than 250 global cross-disciplinary thought leaders from around the world joined to develop ethical guidelines called Ethically Aligned Design (EAD) V2. EAD V2 includes methodologies to guide ethical research and design, embedding values into autonomous intelligence systems among others. For the next step beyond EAD V2, the association is now working for IEEE P70xx Standards Projects, detailing more technical approaches.
Professor Soo Young Lee at KAIST argued that the eventual goal of complete AI is to have human-like emotions, calling it a new paradigm for the relationship between humans and AI-robots. According to Professor Lee, AI-powered robots will serve as a good companion for humans. “Especially in aging societies affecting the globe, this will be a very viable and practical option,” he said.
He pointed out, “Kids learn from parents’ morality and social behavior. Users should have AI-robots learn morality as well. Their relationships should be based on good faith and trust, no longer that of master and slave. He said that liability issues for any mishap will need to be discussed further, but basically each user and developer should have their own responsibility when dealing with these issues.
2018.06.26 View 7776 -
Distinguished Professor Koh Donates His Ho-Am Prize Money
(From left: Distinguished Professor Gou Young Koh and KAIST President Sung-Chul Shin)
Distinguished Professor Gou Young Koh from the Graduate School of Medical Science and Engineering donated one hundred million KRW to KAIST that he received for winning the Ho-Am Prize.
Professor Koh, who is widely renowned for angiogenesis, was appointed as the 2018 laureate of the 28th Ho-Am Prize for demonstrating the effective reduction of tumor progression and metastasis via tumor vessel normalization.
He made the donation to the Graduate School of Medical Science and Engineering, where he conducted his research. “As a basic medical scientist, it is my great honor to receive this prize for the recognition of my research outcome. I will give impetus to research for continuous development,” Professor Koh said.
Professor Koh also received the 5th Asan Award in Medicine in 2012 and the 7th Kyung-Ahm Award in 2011. He was also the awardee of the 17th Wunsch Medical Award. He has donated cash prizes to the school every time he is awarded.
KAIST President Sung-Chul Shin said, “I would like to express my gratitude to the professor for his generous donation to the school. It will be a great help fostering outstanding medical scientists.
Professor Koh received his MD-PhD from the Medical School of Chonbuk National University. After finishing his post-doctoral program at Cornell University and Indiana State University, he was appointed as a professor at Chonbuk National University and POSTECH. Currently, he holds the position of distinguished professor at KAIST and director of the IBS Center for Vascular Research.
2018.06.20 View 5070 -
KAIST Team Reaching Out with Appropriate Technology
(The gold prize winning team of KATT)
The KAIST Appropriate Technology Team (KATT) consisting of international students at KAIST won the gold and silver prizes at ‘The 10th Creative Design Competition for the Other 90 Percent.’
More than 218 students from 50 teams nationwide participated in the competition hosted by the Ministry of Science and ICT last month.
The competition was created to discover appropriate technology and sustainable design items to enhance the quality of life for those with no or few accessible technologies.
A team led by Juan Luis Gonzalez Bello, graduate student from the School of Electrical Engineering received the gold prize for presenting a prosthetic arm. Their artificial arm was highly recognized for its affordability and good manageability. The team said that it cost less than 10 US dollars to construct from materials available in underprivileged regions and was easy to assemble.
Sophomore Hutomo Calvin from the Department of Materials Science & Engineering also worked on the prosthetic arm project with freshmen Bella Godiva, Stephanie Tan, and Koptieuov Yearbola.
Alexandra Tran, senior from the School of Electrical Engineering led the silver prize winning team. Her team developed a portable weather monitor, ‘Breathe Easy’. She worked with Alisher Tortay, senior from the School of Computing, Ashar Alam, senior from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Bereket Eshete, junior from the School of Computing, and Marthens Hakzimana, sophomore from the Department of Mechanical Engineering.
This weather monitor is a low-cost but efficient air quality monitor. The team said it just cost less than seven US dollars to construct the monitor.KAIST students have now won the gold prize for two consecutive years.
2018.06.19 View 9107 -
KAIST Team Develops Flexible Blue Vertical Micro LEDs
A KAIST research team developed a crucial source technology that will advance the commercialization of micro LEDs.
Professor Keon Jae Lee from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and his team have developed a low cost production technology for thin-film blue flexible vertical micro LEDs (f-VLEDs).
In CES 2018, micro LED TV was spotlighted as a strong candidate for replacing the active-matrix organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED) display. Micro LED is a sub-100 um light source for red, green and blue light, which has advantages of outstanding optical output, ultra-low power consumption, fast response speed, and excellent flexibility.
However, the current display industry has utilized the individual chip transfer of millions of LED pixels, causing high production cost. Therefore, the initial market of micro LED TV will be estimated to ~ a hundred thousand dollars for global premium market.
To widely commercialize micro LEDs for mobile and TV displays, the transfer method of thin film micro LEDs requires a one-time transfer of one million LEDs. In addition, highly efficient thin-film blue micro LED is crucial for a full-color display.
The team developed thin-film red f-VLED in previous projects, and now has realized thousands of thin-film blue vertical micro LEDs (thickness < 2 μm) on plastics using a one-time transfer.
The blue GaN f-VLEDs achieved optical power density (~30 mW/mm2) three times higher than that of lateral micro LEDs, and a device lifetime of 100,000 hours by reducing heat generation. These blue f-VLEDs could be conformally attached to the curved skin and brains for wearable devices, and stably operated by wirelessly transferred electrical energy.
Professor Lee said, “For future micro LEDs, the innovative technology of thin-film transfer, efficient devices, and interconnection is necessary. We plan to demonstrate a full-color micro LED display in smart watch sizes by the end of this year. ”
This research “ Monolithic Flexible Vertical GaN Light‐Emitting Diodes for a Transparent Wireless Brain Optical Stimulator ” led by a PhD candidate Han Eol Lee was published in the June 2018 issue of Advanced Materials.
Figure 1. Schematic image of wireless thin-film blue f-VLED arrays on the brain surface
Figure 2. Photo of high-performance and high-density blue f-VLED arrays
2018.06.18 View 8299 -
P.V. Danckwerts Memorial Lecture Awards Distinguished Professor Lee
(Distinguished Professor Sang Yup Lee)
Distinguished Professor Sang Yup Lee from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering was selected as the awardee of the 2018 P.V. Danckwerts Memorial Lecture.
Professor Lee was named the recipient in recognition of his distinguished achievements developing innovative eco-friendly and sustainable chemical materials by applying metabolic engineering. The award is co-sponsored by the Chemical Engineering Science, the Institute of Chemical Engineers, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, and the European Federation of Chemical Engineering.
The award ceremony and Professor Lee’s lecture will be held at the annual meeting of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers in October in Pittsburgh, PA in the US. He will give a lecture titled “Biotechnology to Help Achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.”
The P.V. Danckwerts Lecture was established in 1985 in honor of Professor Peter V. Danckwerts at the University of Cambridge who made significant contributions to the chemical engineering field. Professor Danckwerts served as executive editor of the Chemical Engineering Science and the president of the Institute of Chemical Engineers.
Professor Lee, currently the dean of KAIST Institutes, a multi-and interdisciplinary convergence research center, is taking the lead in biotechnology, especially in the field of metabolic engineering.
Professor Lee’s research team’s novel approaches have been gaining notable attention in the sustainable chemical engineering field and future health care innovations. His team recently presented research on drug-drug and drug-food interactions by using AI, a recombinant E.coli strain that biosynthesizes 60 different nanomaterials covering 35 elements on the periodic table, bio-degradable aromatic polymer’s enzyme production, and a molecular mechanism for PET degradation.
With this award, Professor Lee joined other prominent recipients including Dr. Neal Amundson at the University of Houston, the late Professor Octave Levenspiel at Oregon State University, and Professor Rutherford Aris at the University of Minnesota. Professor Lee is the second Asian recipient, following Dr. Mooson Kwauk at the Institute of Process Engineering of the Chinese Academy of Sciences who won the lecture award in 1989.
2018.06.18 View 5135 -
KAISTians Receive Future Ocean Science and Technology Awards
(From left: PhD candidates Minseok Kang and Junkeon Ahn)
PhD candidates Minseok Kang and Junkeon Ahn from the Department of Mechanical Engineering received Future Ocean Science and Technology Awards from the Korean Association of Ocean Science and Technology Societies (KAOSTS).
Since 2017, KAOSTS has conferred this award upon graduate students who have published outstanding papers on ocean science and technology in order to encourage young researchers in this area.
Kang published ‘Ship block assembly sequence planning considering productivity and welding deformation’ in Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering in which he proposed an assembly sequence planning method for block assemblies that considers the geometric characteristics of blocks to determine feasible assembly sequences as well as assembly process and productivity factors.
Ahn published ‘Fuzzy-based FMEA of hybrid MCFC and gas turbine system for marine propulsion’ in Power Sources. In this research, he conducted a study proposing a fuzzy-based failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA) for a hybrid molten carbonate fuel cell and gas turbine system for liquefied hydrogen tankers.
2018.06.15 View 6275 -
Emeritus Professor JaeKwan Kim Makes Generous Gift
(From left: Dean of the Dept. Physics Eunseong Kim, Emeritus Professor JaeKwan Kim, KAIST President Sung-Chul Shin and Professor Soon Chil Lee)
Emeritus Professor JaeKwan Kim from the Department of Physics made a one hundred million won contribution to KAIST.
He joined KAIST in 1972 and for the next 25 years he dedicated himself to carrying out research and fostering students.
Professor Kim said, “It was a great pleasure and honor to dedicate myself to the development of KAIST as well as Korea. Although I only contributed a small amount of money, I hope that it will help to sustain the development of KAIST. I will continue to support the school behind the scenes.”
He also mentioned that it is meaningful to deliver this fund to KAIST President Sung-Chul Shin, who is the first alumnus president and also his former student.
President Shin said, “His warm heart towards his students will be a priceless gift for the development of KAIST. Not only the Department of Physics, but the entire school will need to work together to help us become a global value-creative leading university and contribute to the country and its people.”
2018.06.12 View 3039 -
Lead-free, Efficient Perovskite for Photovoltaic Cells
(Clockwise from left: Post-doc Researcher Lamjed Debbichi, Master’s Candidate Songju Lee, Professor Min Seok Jang and Professor Hyungjun Kim)
A KAIST research team has proposed a perovskite material, Cs2Au2I6 that serves as a potential active material for highly efficient lead-free thin-film photovoltaic devices. This material is expected to lay the foundation to overcome previously known limitations of perovskite including its stability and toxicity issues.
As strong candidates for next-generation high-efficiency photovoltaic cells, perovskite photovoltaic cells have a maximum photoconversion efficiency of 22%, comparable to high-performance crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells. In addition, perovskite-based cells can be fabricated at low temperatures, thereby bringing about dramatic cost reductions.
However, it has been noted that conventional organic-inorganic hybrid perovskite materials exhibit low stability, eventually degrading their performance and making them unfit for continued use. Moreover, their inclusion of lead has undermined their environmental friendliness.
In light of this, a joint team led by Professor Hyungjun Kim from the KAIST Department of Chemistry and Professor Min Seok Jang from the School of Electrical Engineering has analyzed a previously discovered perovskite material, Cs2Au2I6, consisting of only inorganic substances and investigated its suitability for application in thin-film photovoltaic devices. Theoretical investigations suggests that this new perovskite material is not only as efficient but also more stable and environment friendly compared to the conventional perovskite materials. For this analysis, the team developed multiscale multiphysics simulation frameworks. Atomic-scale first-principle quantum calculations were carried out to study the optical properties of the proposed material, and device-scale electromagnetic simulations were conducted to suggest that the material could indeed serve as a promising photovoltaic substance at the device level.
From this point onward, the research team plans to extend the study in two directions: an empirical study to apply the perovskite material in real-world photovoltaic cells and a theoretical analysis to find the optimal and highly stable material for photovoltaic cells. The team said, “Perovskite materials are highly efficient, but in order to completely replace the conventional solar cells, their stability and toxicity issues must first be resolved.” They added that this research is expected to accelerate related studies in pursuit of high-efficiency, environment-friendly perovskite materials.
This research, led by post-doc researcher Lamjed Debbichi and master’s candidate Songju Lee, was selected as the front cover article of Advanced Materials on March 22.
Figure 1. Cover of Advanced Materials
Figure 2. Schematic of full solar cell device structure
2018.06.08 View 8297 -
Czech Technology Mission with KAIST
Members of the Czech research community visited KAIST to discuss medium to long-term cooperation with KAIST. This visit was hosted by the Fourth Industrial Revolution Intelligence Center (FIRIC).
The community is comprised of people from Czech enterprises and academic institutes that are leading core technologies for the Fourth Industrial Revolution in the fields of AI, robotics, and biotechnology. They had a chance to meet KAIST professors and visit research labs.
Professor Il-Doo Kim from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Professor Seongsu Kim from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and Professor Hyun Uk Kim from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering attended the meeting, which took place in the Mechatronics, Systems, and Control Lab under the Vice President for Planning and Budget Soo Hyun Kim and Professor Kyung Soo Kim from the Department of Mechanical Engineering.
Professor Petr Novák from the Technical University of Ostrava said, “It was a meaningful meeting to help understand research trends on industrial robots in Korea.” Professor So Young Kim from FIRIC said, “The Czech research community is strong in basic research where KAIST has outstanding source technology. I hope this visit will open up a path for medium to long-term cooperation on sharing research and technology know-how between the Czech research community and KAIST.”
2018.06.07 View 5623 -
KAIST Ranked 40th in the QS World University Rankings
KAIST ranked 40th in the 2018 QS World University Rankings, one place higher than last year. According to the QS (Quacquarelli Symonds) World’s Top 100 universities released on June 7, KAIST is the second highest ranked Korean university among the five Korean universities listed, following Seoul National University which ranked 36th.
KAIST displayed outstanding performance by ranking 16th in citations per faculty. In the 2018 rankings, universities that are strong in science, technology, and engineering claimed some of the highest positions. MIT topped the list and Caltech took fourth, ETH Zurich seventh, followed by Imperial College London which took eighth.
According to the analysis compiled by QS, universities focusing on science and technology are dominating the global universities rankings. This tendency comes from the fact that engineering schools have an advantage when evaluating the quality of research according to the number of citations per faculty member.
Provost O Ok Park predicts that science and technology will be key players in the Fourth Industrial Revolution era. “In the coming years, universities that excel in multi and interdisciplinary research will lead future growth. KAIST also continues to focus on transdisciplinary education and research,” he said.
2018.06.07 View 3847 -
KAIST Ranked the Most Innovative University in Asia 3 Years in a Row
KAIST was ranked the most innovative university in the Asia Pacific region for the third consecutive year. The 2018 Reuter Top 75: Asia’s Most Innovative Universities announced that KAIST topped three of the ten indicators identifying the educational institutions doing the most to advance science, invent new technologies, and power new markets and industries.
KAIST was the top for the number of total patents, patents granted, and commercial impact. KAIST filed 1,000 patents from 2011 to 2016, and earned a 79.8% success rate for patent registrations. In terms of commercial impact, KAIST has almost double the score (59.6) of the University of Tokyo (31.3), who was ranked second. Among top ten most innovative universities in Asia, there were four Korean universities, including Postech, Seoul National University, and Sungkyunkwan University, four Japanese universities, and one each from China and Singapore.
KAIST researchers submitted more patents than any other university on the list, and those patents are frequently cited by outside researchers in their own patents and papers. Those are key criteria in Reuters’ ranking of Asia Pacific’s Most Innovative Universities, which was compiled in partnership with Clarivate Analytics, and is based on proprietary data and an analysis of indicators including patent filings and research paper citations.
2018.06.05 View 6093 -
The Center for Anthropocene Studies (CAS) Opens
KAIST will start Anthropocene research, a convergence field of study, to address issues related to the commencement of human activities that have had scientific, industrial, and economic impacts on the Earth’s ecosystem. The National Research Foundation (NRF) of Korea endorsed the KAIST Center for Anthropocene Studies as its Convergence Research Center project.
Anthropocene refers to a new geological age in which various polluting materials that humans have made during the post-industrial revolution era have made a significant impact on the Earth and the lives of humankind. The studies expand the diverse socio-economic and environmental sectors for responding to climate change, natural disasters, ecological destruction, the polarization of the inequality and wealth, and many others.
The KAIST research group at the center, in collaboration with the Graduate School of Science and Technology Policy, the Graduate School of Culture Technology, the School of Humanities & Social Sciences, the Department of Industrial Design, the School of Electrical Engineering, the Satellite Technology Research Center (SaRTec), and the KAIST Initiative for Disaster Studies will conduct multidisciplinary research to address intriguing challenges with complex but creative approaches incorporating the fields of engineering, socioeconomics, and art.
The group will investigate topics such as▲ surface and marine changes to the Earth by applying satellite data ▲disaster prediction and governance system building through AI modeling ▲sustainable housing, transportation, and lifestyles ▲ engineering and artistic approaches for envisioning a new future for humankind and the Earth.
Professor Buhm Soon Park, who is in charge of the center, said, “This pioneering research work will inspire the re-creation of a new paradigm of convergence studies in science, engineering, humanities, and social science. We will contribute to making the world better by designing new technologies and social policies.
2018.06.05 View 9749