Ken ITO and Kan Hiroshi SUZUKI
The University of Tokyo

To begin with, for the global leading universities’ alliance against COVID, we would like to quote a “warning” by an English Pubic / Welfare Economist, Anthony Bernes “Tony” Atkinson[1].

Especially after the shocking “Google Cat“ [2], the rapid development of AI, and the wide spread of machine learning, are apparently towed by GLOBAL GIANT COMPANIES, not by us, leading universities.

Private companies are destined to maximize their shareholders return. Atkinson had clearly pointed out INEVITABLE TENDENCY of COMPANY-BASED INNOVATION for the PROFIT of INVESTORS. He called this bias “SHAREHOLDER CAPITALISM”

Japanese mathematical economist Hirohumi UZAWA(1928-2014) [3] and Katz IWAI(1948-)[4]  have also pointed out strong influence on IT / AI INNOVATION, in general, by GIANTS COMPANIES, such as “GAFA”.

Counter measures against COVID-19, and the AI application upon them, are the most typical examples which should NEVER be BIASED by PRIVATE INTEREST.

In deed we the Japanese academic sectors had experienced such “PUBLIC” requirement in the year 2011, at “THE FUKUSHIMA NUCLEAR DISASTER.

We had invited Dr. Prof. Amartya SEN to Tokyo and discussed the IMPORTANCE of THROUGHOUT “PUBLIC” — not “private”, “profit-motivated” — POLICY MAKING against the RADIOACTIVE CONTAMINATION.

With regard to COVID, from the view point of leading university, we should ALSO keep THROUGHOUT “PUBLIC” POLICY MAKING against the plague.

Quite unfortunately, this PANDEMIC can also cause serious “CORONA DEPRESSION”. Now we should remember the original idea of J. M. Keynes’[5]  during THE GREAT DEPRESSION “PUBLIC INVESTMENT” — governmental investment without any profit motivation — : we shall apply this PUBLIC idea to the ACADEMIC / INDUSTRY-ACADEMIA ALLIANCE and COUNTER MEASURES against COVID.

ALLIANCE with GIANT AI COMPANIES —GAFA and more — IS, OF COURSE, VERY IMPORTANT in the whole INDUSTRY-ACADEMIA COALITION against COVID.

However, THE MOST IMPORTANT is to keep the “PUBLIC” STANDARDS, and WE the LEADING UNIVERSITIES should keep GLOBAL PUBLIC ETHICAL PRINCIPLES in the collaboration with COMPANIES.

UNIVERSITIES should be THE GUARANTOR for the PUBLIC WELFARE.

To keep the counter operation “PUBLIC” — with the meaning of J. M. Keynes — , we THE GLOBAL LEADING UNIVERSITIES should play proper role TO KEEP HIGHEST ETHICAL STANDARD for the COMMON FUTURE of the humankinds.

So we propose INDUSTRIE-ACADEMIA COALITION against COVID : leading universities should CREATE A TIGHT BOND, and COOPERATE WITH global leading GIGANTIC AI COMPANIES to get rid of this crisis at the HIGHEST STANDARDS of SCIENCES and ETHICS, for the TRUE REALIZATION of GLOBAL PUBLIC WELFARE of ALL HUMANKINDS BEYOND COVID.

Reference
[1] See Atkinson, A. B. and  Stiglitz, J. E. Lectures on public economics. London New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co (1980)
[2] Quoc V. Le et al. Building High-level Features Using Large Scale Insupervised Leaning,https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.com/ja//archive/unsupervised_icml2012.pdf
[3] Uzawa H. Economic Analysis of Social Common Capital, (Cambridge University Press, (2005).[4] In Japanese, Katsuhito Iwai et al  “Capitalism and Ethics” Toyo-Keizai (2019) ISBN-10: 4492961585
[5] Keynes, John Maynard The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, Harcourt, Brace & Company, New York (1936)