I had a very pleasant meeting with Professor Xiong (熊), the head professor of the AI department at National Chung Cheng University in Chiayi, Taiwan. Chiayi used to be a farming village with pineapple and sugar cane fields all around. But now the whole area is about to be transformed to the one of the TSMC's main plants.
Professor Xiong is a Taiwanese who was born in India, so I enjoyed his Indian accent English. And he is one of the top professors in Taiwan’s AI area.
Over the lunch time, we discussed about the current university education. He and I both agreed that in all universities, students are drifting toward AI and advanced sciences, and the humanities are declining.
Prof. Xiong emphasized to me that this is a major concern for the future of AI. And I totally agree with him because AI has the potential to change human life and thinking. To achieve this, we need to think carefully about how AI can be developed with human areas of thinking, such as philosophy and literature, or this will be a terrible thing that lead to the degeneration of human beings.
In fact, when I told him that the German and French literature departments in Japan have already been decimated, he was surprised and told me that this is something to be concerned about, which also has a negative impact on the development of science in Japan, too.
The reason why many people do not realize the reality that Google employs philosophers is probably due to the fact that Japan's foolish examination system is actually a challenge. It seems that the mistakes from our generation of educating students separately as arts and sciences is now paying a big price.
What we both agreed on is that since school education is not interesting in the first place, children are influenced by it, and those who win the examinations are already losing the ability to think flexibly and diversely. Professor told us that this is an issue that he feels about the similar way in everywhere in the world.
When I invited him to join me in September for my academic writing course to engineering students at Tohoku University, he responded casually. I was grateful and respected that the most prestigious professor of this famous university was so open-minded. It was really enjoyable meeting.
The neighborhood near the high-speed train station in Chiayi is undergoing a vast land transformation due to TSMC's construction.
With the announcement of a new budget for TSMC, which is expanding into Kumamoto, the purpose of my trip was to discuss ways to train Japanese personnel for the Kumamoto project at Taiwanese universities. The meeting about the fusion of science and humanities gave me the challenging homework to think about the future of Taiwan and Kyushu as it transforms into a digital city.
Next month, I will be back to the Philippines and Taiwan on another business trip for this assignment.
