Japan’s Strategic Quest for Leadership in Global Artificial Intelligence Landscape 

Scott Harrison, SFU David Lam Centre 

Abstract: Generative artificial intelligence (AI) hit the world by storm in 2023, completely sideswiping the years-long discussions about other transformative technologies like 5G. Even though Japan is often critiqued as having an innovation glut, it is moving to position itself as a global AI leader in policy, infrastructure, and talent for its economic growth, addressing societal needs and challenges, and boosting its global competitiveness. Examples of this in practice are the spearheading of the Hiroshima AI Process at the Group of Seven summit in 2023 and the expansion of that initiative into the Hiroshima AI Friends Group. Even in the Expo 2025 Osaka Kansai planning, achieving Japan’s national “Society 5.0” strategy, which has a strong AI component, is one of the event’s main goals. But not all AI-related movements in Japan are happening via the central government as other levels of government, such as municipalities, and businesses are making their own decisions on how to use, not use, or set AI-related policies. This paper explores examples of how Japan is doing this nationally through international initiatives and domestically via summits and events such as Expo 2025 as well as noncentral government actors. It also considers what this means for Japan-Canada relations.

Before Facial Recognition: On the 'Computer Physiognomy' at the 1970 Osaka Expo 

Takahiro Yamamoto, Singapore University of Technology and Design 

Abstract: The research examines the historical significance of the "Computer Physiognomy" attraction at the 1970 Osaka Expo, which incorporated computer-based facial recognition and personality analysis, a seminal moment in facial recognition technology's history. It focuses on the involvement of anthropologist Yamazaki Kiyoshi, responsible for classifying facial features, and physiognomist Asano Hachirō. The paper suggests that through association with computers, Yamazaki and Asano aimed to reinstate quantitative approaches in anthropology discredited as eugenicist after WWII, and lend authority to the study of physiognomy rejected by the mainstream scientific establishment. It shows that at the 1970 Expo, facial recognition was a project where anthropometric and physiognomic approaches to the face coexisted, and the ostensible playfulness of personality assessment and computer involvement masked the colonial undertones of photographing and analyzing subjects' faces.

Osaka 2025, Montreal 1967– contrasting responses to national crises 

Andrew Horvat, UBC Centre for Japanese Research