Racism in academia became a hot topic again when Tokyo University associate professor Ousawa Shouhei (大澤昇平) came under fire for discriminatory remarks about Chinese workers.
“I Don’t Hire Chinese People”
Ousawa holds a PhD and is the CEO of Daisy Co., an AI platform that enables users to collaborate in AI design. On November 20 he tweeted, 「弊社 Daisy では中国人は採用しません」 (“I don’t employ Chinese people at Daisy”). He called out Chinese people for their supposed “poor performance” in commercial enterprises. Ousawa also said he’d reject any Chinese person during screening for potential hires. Even worse, when users started calling him out, he tweeted out that “low-ranking citizens who barely understand Japanese” were attacking him.
It didn’t take long for other users to pummel him for his ignorant tweets. “Isn’t this racist?” some said. He has since deleted some of those tweets, but the damage was already done, with screenshots of his tweets quickly making the Internet rounds. On the flip side, others applauded his discriminatory attitudes, given the tensions between Japan and China over AI development.
The University of Tokyo was quick to distance themselves from Ousawa’s stance and publish a statement of apology. Without naming him or the content of his tweets, the university stated they found it “regrettable” one of their professors would act so discriminatory, but that in the end, his comments were unrelated to the university. On the 28th the university announced it had established a committee to investigate what proper measures should be taken.
Facing the Consequences
Ousawa’s AI company and research are already taking hits thanks to his careless tweets. Companies Monex Group, Aucfan Co., and Daico have already pulled funding from a special AI learning course Ousawa taught. Swiss data platform Streamr also cut all business ties with Daisy.
Ousawa tweeted out a series of apologies on November 30th. First, Ousawa apologized for his AI providing insufficient information on Chinese work performance. User @HasumiinToronto made a good point saying the rest of Ousawa’s apology is pointless because he didn’t apologize as a human first. Another user said Ousawa placing the blame on his AI was similar to politicians blaming their secretaries. As @HasumiinToronto predicted, most users nitpicked the rest of the apology and deemed it ungenuine.
