Science for Capital — Where Neuroscience Meets AI (with Zero Institute)

What was discussed

The session discussed technologies that advance the connection between neuroscience and AI, and the research environment that supports them. Following ZERO INSTITUTE's support model, which combines the functions of a foundation, an institute, and investment, it explained that in measuring brain activity, resolution and ease of data collection are difficult to achieve together. A case of an ALS patient who converses with synthetic speech generated by reading the intention to speak from the brain was also introduced. The conflict between curiosity-driven research and the demand for social implementation, and the need for an environment that tolerates failure in research, were discussed.

About this session

ZERO INSTITUTE, newly established within Tohoku University, is an initiative designed to function as a global base for outstanding early-career researchers — including Japanese researchers active overseas who also wish to be active at home. Here, two researchers supported by Tohoku University's ZERO INSTITUTE speak about the frontier of top-class early-career research, on the theme of the intersection of neuroscience and AI.

Speakers

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  Yuka Tanimoto

  ModeratorForbes JAPAN (Linkties Co., Ltd.)　Executive Officer and Web Editor-in-Chief

  After working at a securities firm, she anchored financial and economic programmes on Bloomberg TV and took an MBA in the United States in 2004. She then worked as a presenter at Nikkei CNBC, where she became the broadcaster's first female commentator, and has been Executive Officer and Web Editor-in-Chief of Forbes JAPAN since June 2020. She has interviewed more than three thousand leading figures worldwide, among them former British prime minister Tony Blair, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and Starbucks founder Howard Schultz. She also moderates economic symposia and serves as a judge for government-backed startup competitions. Her books include a guide to listening and a study of the passions of the world's top leaders.

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  Genji Kawakita

  ZERO INSTITUTE　Researcher / Visiting Associate Professor, Tohoku University

  Born in Kyoto in 1997. He earned a BA in mathematics from Swarthmore College in 2021 and worked as an academic specialist in the Oizumi Laboratory at the University of Tokyo, where he took up computational neuroscience. Since 2022 he has been at Imperial College London, studying consciousness and the control of brain activity from the theoretical side. His work looks for ways to treat subjective experience (qualia) mathematically, and he aims to combine theory with experimental methods, with effective rehabilitation as the longer-term goal.

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  Hiroo Miyata

  ZERO INSTITUTE　Researcher

  Born in 1999. He began neuroscience research while still a student at the University of Tokyo and co-founded a startup as its CTO. At DEEPCORE, the SoftBank Group's deep-tech incubator, he handled investment in deep-tech startups, assessing early-stage technologies and taking them toward commercialisation. Knowing both the research side and the investment side, he works on the routes by which findings in neuroscience reach industry.

• Yasutaka Kameoka

  Tohoku University ZERO INSTITUTE / HERO Impact Capital　Director / Vice President