President's statement

Statement by the President of the Institute of Electronics,
Information and Communication Engineers (IEICE)About So-called "Generative AI"

　Scientists and engineers have a responsibility to foresee the consequences of research, innovation, and the utilization of their results, and to control the technologies in their fields of expertise to help create a better society and environment in the future.

　Hoping for the sound development of generative AI, this statement expresses the research stance of electronic information and communication engineers.

　Generative AI generally refers to applications that appear to autonomously output a variety of data, such as highly complex text, graphics/images, and voice, in response to queries input by humans.

　Generative AI, which has been pointed out as having both positive and negative potential impacts in the future, is a major step forward in artificial intelligence research and significantly impacts society. The IEICE hopes that constructive social and policy discussions will be widely held domestically and internationally on the implications of this technology. The IEICE would like to contribute actively from a technical perspective; however, the IEICE will ultimately follow the conclusions of social and policy discussions.

  1. 1.It is not desirable to unthinkingly stop generative AI research and innovation. We should follow the consensus of society, anticipate the consequences of research and innovation and its utilization, and continue research and innovation.
  2. 2.When preparing and procuring learning data for generative AI research and innovation, it is necessary to carefully check whether legal and ethical issues are involved.
  3. 3.Applying learned models to society and utilizing the output of generative AI are left to social and policy discussions.
  4. 4.Regarding the ethical, legal, and social issues caused by generative AI research and innovation, such as the output results of generative AI going against social consensus, it is important to utilize the IEICE's technical expertise and cooperate in finding solutions.

June 6, 2023
Katsuhiko KAWAZOE
President of the Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers