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Dr. Hamid Hefazi’s contribution to the Maeil Business Newspaper Engineering Ethics On a cold day on January 28, 1986, at 11:38 am, the Space Shuttle Challenger was launched from Kennedy Space Center. The mission designated as STS-51-L was the tenth flight of the Challenger. The orbiter broke apart 73 seconds into the flight, killing all seven crew members. A subsequent investigation by NASA determined that the technical cause of the accident was the failure of two redundant O-ring seals joining the solid rocket boosters (SBRs). On the surface, this appears to be an unfortunate accident where no malice was involved. Investigation however showed that a series of carless, sometimes self-serving, and unethical decisions were made by managers and engineers of NASA and Thiokol, the SBRs manufacturer, which led to this disaster. Several other notorious and high-profile incidents involving ethical failures such as disregarding public safety, environmental protection, fairness, honesty in research and testing as well as bribery, fraud, and conflicts of interest, on the part of engineers, have been documented in previous years. These problems have raised an important question for engineering educators. Engineers perform works that significantly impact the environment, and public safety, and also have major financial and economic consequences. These conflicting aspects sometimes present ethical dilemmas for engineers. Are engineering students trained and prepared for confronting and resolving such ethical dilemmas in their work? To address this challenge, led by the ABET (ABET.org) the body responsible for accrediting undergraduate engineering programs in the United States, engineering programs in the US are mandated to incorporate engineering ethics in their curricula. Professional ethics is primarily addressed by professional codes of ethics which are specific to each profession. Perhaps the most rigorous professional codes of ethics belong to the medical and legal professions. Engineering professional organizations also have their own codes of ethics. In the United States, these include the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE), the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) codes of ethics among many others. It is important to note that these codes are guidelines and do not cover every potential ethical dilemma that may be faced by an engineer. Their applications often require a subjective review of the problem. They also sometimes present apparent conflicts when applied to a problem. For example, one of the NSPE Fundamental Canons states that engineers should “hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public”. Professional Obligation section of the same code however states that “Engineers shall not disclose without consent confidential information concerning the business affairs or technical process of any present or former clients or employers or public body on which they serve”. The dilemma presented here is, for example, when Thiokol engineer Roger Boisjoly was aware of potential problems with the O-ring in the booster, was he ethically bound to disclose that to the public without the consent of his employer? Situations like that require students to develop ethical problem-solving skills. Elements of ethical problem solving include understanding both the factual and conceptual issues of the problem, identifying the moral principles to use, and developing a systematic approach to applying these principles. Most problems have a clear ethical answer. Safety health and welfare of the public clearly supersede the professional obligation of confidentiality to an employer. There are however situations when the answers are not as clear. Practicing engineers are well-advised to understand and follow relevant professional codes of ethics in order to protect society, themselves, and their employers from serious negative consequences. Engineering curricula must train students on the analytical skills that are required for addressing ethical questions that are faced by engineers. Click here to read the article
2022.04.19 Hits 5265
Dr. Chihmao Hsieh’s contribution to the Maeil Business Newspaper AI and job interviews: Leveling the playing field Written by Chihmao HSIEH In the recent last few years, artificial intelligence has been implemented to handle some of the filtering processes involved in assessing job interviews. A growing number of companies is requiring job applicants to answer questions online via video camera, whereby computer programs then process the video clips and audio transcripts. Assessments of facial expressions, eye movements, voice intonation, and word choice are combined to come up with sets of scores for each applicant. For now, it appears that most of the companies using this technology are using it only for the initial cut, thus capable of filtering applications easily from tens of thousands to mere dozens. Some AI interview software works by having current employees answer the questions on video, and then evaluating the candidates on how well they match those employees. The criticism has been swift and wide-ranging. Besides the obvious criticisms related to tying voice intonation and facial expressions to personality or expected job performance, applicants also express unfairness about the unilateral nature of AI interviews, where applicants are unable to correct an AI’s perception in the same way that they can correct a human interviewer while face-to-face. Career development staff at universities lament that AI doesn’t know how to comprehend applicants’ value systems, or appreciate the work motivations stemming from their aspirations or passion. Researchers have found that AI systems are prone to making decisions that reflect racism or sexism, and have called to regulate AI to ensure transparency and accountability. AI also has severely limited ability to recognize humor, which is valuable within creative, entrepreneurial organizations. As a result, some companies such as Korea Airports Corp. have gotten rid of AI interviews because managers were unsure exactly how and what the AI were evaluating. Overall, policymakers have asked whether the cost savings offered by this technology are worth discounting this much of human value and dignity. As with many technological advances, there are tradeoffs in using AI to assess job interviews. At the surface, the cost savings are obvious and significant. As communication technology improves and more work goes remote, the physical boundaries of the workplace will open up. HR managers become less confined in recruiting from a local labor market, and companies can benefit from more candidates for each of their open positions. In processing all these extra applications, AI doesn’t suffer from fatigue or the broadest set of human biases. As many AI software chiefs have commented, AI’s purpose here is to complement human-led decisions, without substituting for them completely. Maybe we trust AI’s job placement ability in the future just as much as we trust Google’s search capability today. But let’s take a step back: the ultimate goal here is to accurately match job seeker to open position. We can design the system with two strategies. In a first scenario, we facilitate the assessment of job applications. That’s what AI technology currently offers to us. In a second scenario, we help job seekers to foster taste in all the large and small companies hiring around the world. But how? I suggest that technology should scrutinize companies, as much as companies want to scrutinize job applicants. For example, a system could collect 24-hour real-time electronic data of employee behaviors at companies, and offer scores of each company’s ability to manage and support communication and collaboration. It might track the daily actual communication between employees, use that data to score the quality and challenge of all workgroups’ actual goals and projects, and offer weekly scores regarding the company’s level of creativity and bureaucracy. In this way, the burden then falls on companies to be more transparent about the quality of their daily internal work environment and the worklife of employees, besides simply relying on technology that robotically sifts through hundreds of thousands of resumes and video interviews. These two strategies are not mutually exclusive. But the point is that we give some power back to job applicants and level the playing field. Although companies today have more applicants to choose from, applicants today also potentially have more companies to choose from. If a medium-sized company in the USA has opened up their boundaries to the world, then the world should also be able to identify and assess it. We need more employment policies and entrepreneurship acknowledging that job seekers deserve to identify the best companies that are fit for them, not just the other way around. Perhaps one day, job applicants can use AI to help them identify the thousands of companies around the world that are currently hiring, and then see a score that estimates the probability that they won’t like or are too talented for any given company. Companies could simultaneously get the chance to send a strong signal regarding the quality of their philosophy towards humanity. Perhaps some companies would be willing to pay for the rights to be certified in this kind of applicant-friendly system. They could be proud that they not only welcome shortlisted finalists to interview face-to-face at their offices, but that they are also confident and humble enough to respect job applicants in helping them decide whether their company is good enough for them in the first place. On the other hand, if job applicants paid a nominal subscription fee to use such AI, it would have the added benefit of helping companies to identify those job seekers that signal seriousness about their job hunt (as we might observe with LinkedIn’s subscription service today). These kinds of business models bring some balance back to the equation. If companies use AI job interview software to assess candidates but aren’t willing to share daily or weekly AI data regarding their own internal environment or their own company culture, then they are largely hypocritical. These kinds of issues regarding the direction of innovation weren’t matters of concern in the past. However, times are changing. As AI advances further and further, part of the system should still ensure that job candidates are valued with some basic standard of dignity, from a human perspective. But at the very least, candidates deserve to be on a similar playing field as companies. If that requires giving job applicants the power to leverage their own AI in assessing the desirability or fit of companies to work for, so be it. Note: News story regarding Korea Airports Corp dropping AI interviews: http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20211004000214 Click here to read the article
2022.01.13 Hits 4334
Dr. Hamid Hefazi’s contribution to the Maeil Business Newspaper The Fourth Industrial Revolution and the Future of Engineering Education Written by Hamid Hefazi, PhD Professor & Chair, Mechanical Engineering Department Convergence and recent advances in numerous emerging technologies are referred to as the era of the “Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). The term was first proposed in 2016 by Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum (WEF). 4IR has major social, cultural, political, and global implications. American writer Alvin Toffler, in his book “Future Shock” published in 1970, was among the first to predict and discuss many of these issues. Engineering is one of the most crucial professions for achieving the potentials of 4IR. In turn, it is also markedly impacted by it. Faced with tremendous opportunities and challenges that the 4IR presents, engineering educators must take a critical look at the current state of engineering education and answer a number of hard questions such as: What skill sets are required for future engineers? Do current engineering curricula adequately provide these skills? What is the appropriate balance between theory and practice in engineering education? Is a four-year curriculum adequate to educate engineers of the future? Who should become an engineer? These are difficult questions, for some of which there are no consensus answers. Several studies by prominent engineering organizations such as the US National Academy of Engineering and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers have addressed this topic. While some of their conclusions are different, they all strongly agree on the need for the development of certain attributes beyond the technical training of engineers. These skills which are referred to as “soft skills”, are considered as essential as technical skills. 4IR presents substantial growth in the scope and scale of problems that engineers need to address. For example, engineering knowledge is now applied to improving the quality of healthcare, the safety of food products, and the operation of financial systems. Many of these problems are multidisciplinary and require teams of experts to address them. The complexity of the problems also requires a “tool-based” approach, integrating advanced technologies such as Computational Methods, Machine learning, and Artificial Intelligence with traditional engineering disciplines. As former US secretary of education, Richard Riley noted: “We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist, using technologies that haven’t been invented, in order to solve problems, we don’t even know are problems yet.” These challenges demand that engineering curricula go beyond traditional technical training. While it is safe to assume that future development in engineering will still be rooted in Mathematics and Physics, many other disciplines will be integrated with engineering. The intersection of biological sciences and engineering is already well established. However, the multidisciplinary nature of future problems is not limited to these areas. For example, understanding Cognitive Sciences play an important role in the engineering design process as well as the development of autonomous robots of the future. Understanding human psychology and human factors is an essential consideration in the development of space travel and space colonization. It is only by aligning teaching and learning methods with the skills such as lifelong learning, complex problem solving, critical thinking, and cognitive flexibility, we can ensure that today’s students will be able to advance in the future dynamic environment. Educating future engineers also needs integrating advanced tools in curricula and assigning complex problems that would require the synthesis of concepts from multiple disciplines, applying logical boundary conditions, and examining outcomes. Engineering work is also the link between social needs and commercial applications. Along with solving technical issues, engineers must also analyze the impact of the products they develop or the systems they design on the environment and on the people using them. In the 4IR era economy, the allure of employment in “big businesses” will be replaced by the success of new industries that start as home businesses. To thrive in such an economy, innovation, entrepreneurship, a global perspective, communication, and leadership skills are essential. Finally, attracting the right talent to engineering programs is essential for the future of the profession. The current approach requires that young students join an educational pathway that ultimately results in an engineering degree. If a student enrolled in the wrong math class in 7th grade, she will find it difficult to become an engineer. This approach deprives the profession of many potential talents. A more holistic approach is needed to identify those candidates who have the ability to acquire knowledge rather than those who have certain pre-requisites. In short, engineering education should focus on strong fundamentals in a wide range of sciences, the ability to acquire and use advanced technology, various softs skills, and most importantly the ability to acquire and apply new knowledge. It could be argued that it is extremely difficult to adequately include all of these elements in four-year engineering curricula. Therefore, the need for education beyond the Bachelor’s degree and technical specialization at the graduate level becomes inevitable. The American education system is perhaps the first to recognize these challenging requirements and attempt to address them to some level of success. Click here to read the article
2022.01.06 Hits 3817
Dr. Chihmao Hsieh’s contribution to the Maeil Business Newspaper How can forthcoming changes in Korean educational policy serve a meaningful worklife? Written by two authors: Chihmao Hsieh, Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship, SUNY Korea Karl Wennberg, Professor of Education and Entrepreneurship, Stockholm School of Economics Education has been a focus in policy-making recently, as experts have called for a shift in the educational system amid forthcoming demographic changes and the “fourth industrial revolution”. This past summer, the Education Committee of Korea’s National Assembly approved a bill to install a new body tentatively called the ‘National Education Commission’ (국가교육위원회). The commission, scheduled to be launched next year, would be responsible for taking the lead in establishing a non-partisan long-term educational policy, while the Ministry of Education would carry out the policy’s goals and make any short-term administrative adjustments. Although education in Korea is culturally tied to anticipated job security and life satisfaction, this renewed focus on Korean education comes at a time when job satisfaction in Korea remains dubious. Between July-October 2020, the JoongAng Ilbo and Teamblind interviewed roughly 72,109 office workers from 9,371 local companies about their work, asking them about their welfare benefits, relationships with colleagues, trust among team members, and work autonomy. Seven out of ten workers in Korea suffered burnout over the preceding one-year period. While it is unsurprising that Korea still has one of the lowest worker productivities among the G20 countries, the data revealed that the two most important factors directly linked to the level of job satisfaction were the meaningfulness of work and the quality of relationships with bosses. We believe that any major educational reform should be designed this time for the long-run purpose of fostering job satisfaction. Ideally the government panel mentioned above will include businesspeople who respect education, alongside educators that respect organizational ‘best practices’ and the economy. Yet we still envision some tactics for educational reform that can support future job satisfaction in Korea. In order to develop a workforce that is more innovative and passionate for re-learning throughout working life, more effort should be put into combining critical thinking with transdisciplinary education. Such a prescription opens the door for unstructured problem-solving, and unfortunately, that’s when student performance assessment starts to become prohibitively subjective by Korean standards. One possible solution is to enlist high-tech companies with their expertise in Big Data and AI to help with assessment. For years, the ‘EdTech’ industry has worked on digital tools that assess knowledge, and these systems are not easy for students to ‘game’ and cheat on. Most importantly, these high-tech companies and educational providers must convince students’ parents that their assessment systems are legitimate. Even today, the meaningfulness of learning via concept acquisition is still emphasized less than rote memorization and standardized test taking. There could be more interaction between EdTech companies and parts of the educational system, designed to address students’ and parents’ potential concern. For example, some of our Swedish university students created a startup called ‘Sqore’ which was briefly the largest in the world for holding student talent competitions, later pivoting into an assessment/student selection service for graduate school programs and companies. Those organizations contracted with Sqore because they saw problem-solving competitions as a good way not only to assess “soft” skills like creativity and interdisciplinarity, but also as a way to market their company in recruiting the most talented students. Korea’s conglomerates could be enlisted to create more problem-solving competitions where winners are awarded with month-long or summer internships. Many large US-based companies as well as NASA have successfully used such ‘innovation competitions’ to attract talented and interested new employees. Such initiatives would send strong messages to both students and parents alike that grades should not be the sole obsession, and that the business world cares about critical and innovative thinking at all decision-making levels. Ideally, such competitions should focus less on narrowly specifying ‘ideal solutions’ or deliverables involving intellectual property, and more about assessing complementary measures of ability (e.g. creativity, interdisciplinary thinking, and communication skills). Lastly, students should be exposed to greater amounts of teamwork at all levels of Korean education, instead of excessive competition and rivalry. Transdisciplinary education ideally should involve combining instructors and students from multiple disciplines into a single classroom environment, and forming teams. Students are then exposed to teamwork environments which include unfamiliar situations, requiring them to develop curiosity. They would also learn about trust and trustworthiness, which are important for effective collaboration and team innovativeness. Of course, team-teaching is risky in Korean education if the instructors end up antagonizing each other’s authority in front of students during class. Teachers should instead take the opportunity to enhance their own learning and building interpersonal trust when interacting with each other. It is here where an instructor’s humility can be promoted to impress students. Certainly, there is no single ‘silver bullet’ for simultaneously improving student outcomes and job satisfaction in Korea. But we see these two as correlated objectives. Improving the educational system to allow for reputable AI-driven assessment solutions; showing parents and students that businesses care about critical thinking skill over test scores; and introducing transdisciplinary teamwork to students, can all naturally lead to a more meaningful, entrepreneurial, dynamic, and exciting career development experiences. Perhaps these three tactics could even be combined synergistically; for example, Korean EdTech companies could host transdisciplinary problem-solving team competitions. Overall, shouldn’t the focus be less about educational and training policy, and more about a broader learning policy? Read More
2021.11.12 Hits 22113
Professor Gerald M. Stokes' contribution to Maeil Business Newspaper Anonymity Written by Gerald Stokes There are even more complicated times ahead. In this ever-expanding age of the internet in which it has become a necessity of life, there is a growing concern about the extent to which individuals’ privacy may be violated. There are certainly many ways privacy can be compromised. As I looked at the range of issues concerning privacy and privacy protection, it led me down a path to the consideration of anonymity in cyberspace. This is becoming another important issue in our highly connected world. When we think of privacy, probably the most intense invasion of privacy is identity theft. This is a burglary of the most personal kind. People that have experienced feel violated and it takes considerable time and effort to recover. It happens in many ways and in varying degrees. It can range from taking over your identity and stealing your money, to assuming your work identity to steal from your employer. While the users of the internet may bear some responsibility for the theft of their personal data, leaks of personal information held by a third party are increasingly common. This may lead to individual identity theft or any number of other questionable activities. In most of the world, identity theft and the stealing of personal data are crimes – as they should be. On the other hand, data mining by internet service providers is considered a legitimate business purpose. Providers, like Google, track our use of their browsers, email, news services, and other apps they may provide. They track not only our usage, but the content of that usage. They examine it and sell the results of their examination to advertisers or use it themselves. While these providers may end up knowing more about us than anyone who has stolen our identity, it is considered a fair trade for the free usage of their services. This data collection is largely information about us. Who we are specifically is less important than our attributes, our gender, our age, what our interests are, how much money we make, where we live and other demographic data. These attributes are connected to an “address” – a place to find us on the internet with ads, offers, or political promotions. Individuals have evolved strategies to deal with this targeting. One is to use the time-honored tradition of choosing your “username”. Some of us prefer to make these usernames similar to our real name, while others choose more exotic aliases or “handles”. Some people will use different identities for different purposes – social media, email, online shopping – thereby compartmentalizing their identity. Many people go beyond this approach and create elaborate sets of identities for their various social media accounts. These are rapidly evolving to graphical representations or avatars. These are what I would call a weak protection of “who I am”. A more complete protection of protecting “who I am” is to become anonymous. This comes in several layers. In literary circles authors sometimes have a “nom de plume”. The American author Samuel Clemens wrote as “Mark Twain”. Authors true identities may or may not be known. For example, here in Korea, who is, or who are, Djuna? Increasingly, we see individuals, particularly in social media commentary simply becoming their alias, remaining anonymous. Anonymity is an extreme form of privacy. A person’s true identity remains private while their alias becomes a social commentor, a political gadfly, or a cultural critic. Most democracies protect people’s ability to speak – commonly called freedom of speech. Generally, freedom of speech is a protection against the actions of the government targeting what we say. However, as we well know, freedom of speech does not protect individuals from “prosecution by the public” on social media. Protection of ones’ private self from this onslaught by using an alias, and remaining anonymous, seems certainly prudent in some cases. On the other hand, the same kind of anonymity can equally protect a bully or a purveyor of false news. Hiding behind their internet identity, individuals feel emboldened to act, believing that they will not be held accountable. This is complicated when one realizes that not all “identities” on the internet are human. The development of bots, artificial users of the internet is becoming commonplace. These can be very simple programs or more sophisticated AI based systems. They are used to amplify and spread messages. These bots never rest and have been used to influence political campaigns and spread false information about individuals, technologies like vaccines or other matters of public interest. Facebook and other service providers are trying to understand their responsibility for these uses of their platforms. Increasingly around the world governments wonder what, if any regulation might be required. Other governments, or parts of governments, wonder how the same tools might be used to advance their national agenda – either by controlling content within their borders or launching cyber based campaigns in, even against other countries. As a student of the relationship between technology and society, I have frequently shared ideas in this column that might address the issues I raise. I have suggested another “law” of robotics that requires more responsible human actions and the use of blockchain to ensure data fidelity in the face of fake news. I have no answer for the privacy and anonymity conundrum. A perfectly reasonable desire to protect “who I am” uses anonymity, but that same anonymity can be used as a cover for individuals who approach the world with malicious intent. Some aspects of privacy concerns are being addressed. Two factor authentication is helping protect against some forms of identity theft. Similarly, there cases where individuals involved in election tampering have been charged with a crime. However, actions are few and the problem is growing. More complicated times are indeed ahead … Click here to read the original article
2021.09.27 Hits 19980
Prof. Jinsang Lee delivered a speech at 2021 GGGF conference “The future of a global economy depends on technological innovation and the people who lead it.” SUNY Korea Professor Lee Jin Sang voiced his opinion that the development of technological innovation should be accelerated in this era of great transformation around the world. He was speaking at the '13th Good Growth Global Forum (2021 GGGF)', held at the international conference hall of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Junggu on September 9th. He emphasized that “The future direction of the global economy will depend on this field. In order to lead technological innovation in the relevant field, it is necessary to invest in R&D and secure human resources.”
2021.09.14 Hits 17430
Dr. Chihmao Hsieh’s contribution to the Maeil Business Newspaper Can a Focus on Empathy and Trust Guide Our Taste in Choosing the Right Problems to Solve? Written by Chihmao Hsieh In his inauguration speech earlier this year, Lee Kwang-hyung, the new president of KAIST, remarked “KAIST는 앞으로 인류가 당면한 문제를 찾아 정의하고 해결하는 것에 중점을 둬야 한다”. This is a fundamental issue in entrepreneurship: the opportunities that we find depend on how we search for to a problem, but also how we formulate problems in the first place. For example, we all know that it’s not easy to park a car in Seoul. If we formulate the problem as a lack of parking spaces, then maybe we should build more parking garages. However, if the problem is that there are too many idle cars, then we should better optimize public transportation, ride sharing, or the taxi system. Or maybe we decide that cars are currently too big, and smaller cars will be easier to navigate in tight spaces. These three different problem formulations all lead to very different technological directions. Indeed, our taste in the problems that we identify today affects the decisions and socio-technological environment that we have tomorrow. These days, society is addressing various problems with the aid of rapidly advancing artificial intelligence and robotics. Recent innovations certainly save money. Coffee barista robots don’t get tired. Digital news anchors don’t need health insurance. And self-driving trucks don’t ask for pensions. While jobs are at risk of being lost, new jobs will be created. In the near term, for example, we still need people to maintain the robots that make the coffee or fix the trucks that deliver our packages. Technological advances are fundamentally entangled with the changing human tasks and jobs on this planet. Set aside the idea of universal basic income, for now. We face three issues: which problems to solve, what technologies to develop, and how to identify and design the tasks and jobs eventually performed by humans. There is no magic equation that explains how this all actually unfolds. Often, even, new scientific technologies emerge so quickly that they arrive before we know what problems they should solve. With increasingly advanced AI, where applications are so broad and dramatic, we should stop to think: How do we formulate and choose which problems to solve? One diagnosis would require us to work backwards: ask ourselves how we want future society and work culture to reflect core values of humanity, and then use that vision to help constrain and guide the kinds of technologies we develop and the kinds of problems that we address. Recent research on service industries suggests that AI will tend to first replace mechanically-oriented jobs, then analysis-oriented jobs, then intuition-oriented jobs, and finally empathy-oriented jobs, in that order. Opinions differ regarding the overall timeline. However, building and refining a stronger culture for empathy now will help preserve a basis of humanity at work and in society, protecting ourselves from the most damaging economics of AI. Human empathy is not particularly scalable, but maybe we also should not be trying to make it scalable. should not be scalable. Marketing staff, news reporters, nurses, teachers and countless other occupations today can make valuable use of human empathy, and we should support that kind of sociocultural direction. On a broad scale, more products and services can be created to enable people to exhibit, share, and promote empathy, at work and at home. In the future, hopefully still more different kinds of empathy-oriented jobs can emerge. Besides empathy, we should also consider the importance of preserving the importance of trust in interactions between humans. This issue hasn’t been addressed much; instead, most scholars and policymakers today are worried about how we humans could best learn to trust AI. But there’s an important conceptual distinction between how humans trust AI and how they trust other humans. On one hand, trust between humans requires an element of vulnerability to others’ self-interest: if a father promises his child that he will drive her to an evening hagwon exam, she trusts him that he won’t get drunk while partying with co-workers, then arriving late to pick her up. On the other hand, machines and robots have no self-interest; we merely trust them to function reliably and make fewer errors than us. As our interactions become increasingly mediated by computerized technology and AI, we position ourselves to learn to “trust” and “forgive” computers and robots more than we maintain our ability and capacity to trust and forgive each other. As a civilized society, shouldn’t we be developing technology and policy that ultimately helps humans trust and empathize with each other more, not less? Recent developments offer potential case studies. Aria, for example, represents AI by SK Telecom that has been shown to empathetically stimulate senior citizens’ cognition and delay onset of dementia, while also doubling their daily travel distances. But does the AI-based replication of the late Kim Kwang-Seok’s voice and singing help to foster empathy or fulfill egos? Are recently developed AI-based ‘digital girlfriends’ more likely to support or cheapen cultural norms of human trust and empathy? While it’s true that business ventures should often be excused for generating ‘negative externalities’ (부정적인 외부효과), we should be actively avoiding those negative externalities that fundamentally discount any core value of humanity. Formulating the right problems, developing supportive technological solutions, and fostering meaningful jobs should be simultaneous considerations that will require business and government to have good taste. But good taste in the value of human empathy and trust is not straightforward. For example, empathy should not completely stifle competitive spirit, and sometimes trust between business partners should not cut off valuable exploration of the business environment. As countries—including South Korea—race to become world leaders in commercializing AI-based technology, they should all respect the responsibility of choosing what entrepreneurial directions we take. Overall, having good taste in humanity is simply becoming more valuable than ever. Hopefully AI won’t become an expert in that too. Click here to read the article
2021.06.17 Hits 20820
SUNY Korea Admission Briefing Session “It Was Almost Like a Press Conference” … SUNY Korea Admission Briefing Session Attracted Many Prospective Students and Their Parents Despite the COVID19 Situation The SUNY Korea Admission Briefing Session for the Fall 2021 and Spring 2022 semester entry was held at Shilla Stay Samsung in Seoul on the 24th. Students and parents who attended the briefing session showed high interest in—and continued to ask questions even after the event—on the merits of each major and career path after graduation, rather than inquiring about the university itself. The briefing session was held in English and Korean respectively in the morning and afternoon, with around 10 participants in the morning and 70 participants in the afternoon. Although the number of participants per session was limited to 50 people due to the COVID19 pandemic, the afternoon session was so eagerly anticipated that more than 20 people attended additionally without prior registration. The briefing session was conducted in accordance with the government’s COVID19 prevention rules. As for the reasons for developing their interest in SUNY Korea, students and parents mentioned the advantage of receiving a foreign university degree without studying abroad and the opportunity of rapid improvement in English language proficiency. "While planning for the admission of universities in the US, I got to learn about SUNY Korea and prepared for its admission at the same time. I was attracted to the fact that I can improve my English skills with 100% English lectures as the university provides the same curriculum as in the US while staying in Korea. I think it is also a benefit that I get to meet foreign friends and learn different languages from various countries," said Kim Min-Ji, a senior student at a local high school. Jeong Hyo-Jung, a parent who came with Kim Min-Ji, said, "My daughter wanted to study in a foreign country, so we sent her abroad last year. However, she had to come back earlier because of the COVID19 pandemic, and the situation has not gotten any better for her to leave the country again. Thus, we considered an option of applying for SUNY Korea." Among the participants, there were several transfer students as well. Yang Hyun-Sik, a graduate of a 2-year college, said, "I realized that having a degree from a four-year university is necessary to have a competency in a job market, and transferring to a domestic university was already a red ocean for me," adding, "My brother is currently studying in the State University of New York, and I was always jealous about his English ability. I am interested in SUNY Korea because I wish to improve my English skills along with having an opportunity to study at the Stony Brook New York campus for a year. Kim Kyu-Seok, the team leader of the admissions team at SUNY Korea, said, "The change in students’ perception about university admission due to the evolving atmospheres in education, such as a decrease in the number of school-age populations, and the emergence of various higher education alternatives, was evident throughout the session. As students’ awareness about SUNY Korea has been enhanced, I received many constructive questions about its programs rather than simple questions about the university itself. It was as if I was at a press conference. The briefing session was substantial because students brought questions which reflect their individual circumstances." At the briefing session, not only were the university and its seven different majors introduced, but also an analysis of admission trends and admitted student portfolios was conducted. In particular, the session provided detailed explanations of the admission process that is not included in the number of times that one can apply to domestic universities during early and regular admission. Also, an analysis of admitted students’ high school GPA and tips for acceptance was given. Shin Hye-Mi, the assistant manager of the admissions team, noted that, "Even if students are not confident with their high school GPA, they can submit other supplementary documents such as SAT scores, essays, awards, and certifications. The genuine interest in the major and thorough preparation for admission are the basis of successful applications. The admission process is based on 100% document screening, but some students can be invited to an interview and this can be an opportunity for them to make a good impression.” Meanwhile, Stony Brook University (SBU) of SUNY Korea is recruiting 260 students this year. The Fall 2021 admission deadline for early applications is April 30th, and for regular applications is July 16th. The required application documents include an English high school transcript, English cover letter, English or Korean recommendation letter, and official English proficiency test scores (TOEFL iBT 80 or higher/ IELTS Academic 6.5 or higher/ New SAT ERW 480 or higher/ ACT English 19 or higher/ Duolingo English Test 105 or higher). SUNY Korea FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology) is recruiting 105 students this year. The deadline for regular applications is April 30th. The required application documents include an English high school transcript, English cover letter, and official English proficiency test scores (TOEFL iBT 80 or higher/ IELTS Academic 6.5 or higher/ PTE 53 or higher/ Duolingo English Test 105 or higher). Note that the English proficiency test score requirement for FIT is different from that of SBU. For more information, students can visit SUNY Korea's official website. Additionally, the second admission briefing session will be held on June 5th. Click here to read the original article
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