The Mie Prefectural Government will begin trial use of AI to help decide whether a temporary protective custody order is necessary for a child suspected of being abused.

The prefectural government will place tablet devices loaded with the relevant app, developed by the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), at selected local child guidance centers. The trial will start in June and its results will then be evaluated.

If viewed superficially, this project could be interpreted as being part of a wider trend, in which the latest technology is applied to help address urgent issues that evoke strong societal responses. But behind this undertaking lies a trajectory of specialized efforts by parties familiar with how convoluted child abuse countermeasures can be. These parties are aware of the complex familial and societal issues surrounding child abuse, and that there is not a “one size fits all” solution to the problem.

Concern over similar incidents

In 2012, a number of abuse cases saw the lives of small children taken in Mie, even though a local child guidance center was aware of the signs of potential child abuse.

Akira Suzuki, who headed another child guidance center in Mie when those incidents occurred, reflected back on that time.

“A center’s ability to estimate risk is certain to come up when the relevant assessment committee discusses countermeasures. But depending solely on staffers’ experience and their instincts would probably result in seeing similar cases occur again at a time when society, as well as the kinds of abuse, become more diverse. That was how I felt then,” said Suzuki, who headed the Mie Prefectural Child Guidance Center through March, a facility that presides over five other such centers in the prefecture.

Around that time, Suzuki learned about a checklist used in Western countries to judge the risk of child abuse recurrences based on past abuse data. Front-line operations and the effective allocation of human resources were assigned to cases based on the data analysis. He applied the checklist to cases that he was involved in.

“Deep down I was convinced by the results,” Suzuki recalled.

Kota Takaoka backed efforts by Suzuki and others seeking to adapt the risk assessment checklist for Mie’s purposes. Then an assistant professor at Chiba University, Takaoka, in his capacity as a clinical psychologist, conducted front-line fieldwork at child guidance centers, hospitals and police stations.

“He compiled and helped to create an evidence-based checklist after consulting with staff members,” Suzuki noted.

Full-scale use of the checklist began in fiscal 2013, and it was stipulated that a temporary protective custody order should be considered if any one of the checklist’s 15 items were met. The items included “a third party witnessed a child being hit in the face” and “there are scars or bruising above a child’s neck or on the abdomen.”

As a result, the number of children placed under emergency protection and listing abuse as their chief reason for wanting to do so doubled in 2015 from 198 in 2012.

The executive order, which allows authorities to remove children from their parents without parental consent, caused a great deal of confusion and was negatively perceived by schools and nurseries.

Even after Takaoka moved to the Probabilistic Modeling Research Team of the Artificial Intelligence Research Center at AIST, Suzuki’s ties with him continued. Their efforts developed further and data from 5,000 cases has been accumulated using the checklist.

Exploring risk and recurrence

With limited information at their disposal, there are limits to what people can predict. The undertaking by the AIST team and Mie Prefecture is an effort to analyze abuse risks and its potential recurrence via AI from cases that came to light.

For example, the potential child abuse recurrence rate is figured after analyzing factors used to calculate how severe the risk of abuse might be, including where scars are located on a child’s body, their family makeup, parental accounts and any track record of home visitations and consultations. Through the newly introduced tablet devices, more data would be accumulated, which in itself would then become more expansive.

This method of utilizing data is expected to be very useful not only when deciding whether to implement a temporary protective custody order, but also whether to return children to their homes. This is because there is much room to apply machine learning and mathematical statistics methods, such as probabilistic modeling, when making future predictions.

Meanwhile, the officials concerned all stress that the data and AI are not an all-encompassing solution.

“It’s people who make any final judgments and decisions. The following three factors are essential for taking proper measures (against child abuse) — the information necessary to decide how to address the situation; the availability of personnel able to make decisions; and having a team who can execute what’s decided. We should always keep that in mind,” Suzuki said.

The importance of using evidence when formulating policy is repeatedly noted. The idea is to promote discussion of policymaking and decisions based on evidence revealed through scientific analysis. Mie’s efforts are one example where such an idea is becoming prevalent within the public welfare sector. Officials from other municipalities have expressed interest in Mie Prefecture’s undertaking.

How do you view Japan’s strengths and where it stands now globally at a time when countries, led by the United States and China, are engaging in fierce competition to be innovative?

Kajiwara: I feel that common values and ethics in Japan have been re-evaluated by various industries. Meticulous service represented by the spirit of omotenashi (traditional Japanese hospitality) and an orientation toward development that tries to grasp customer needs are just some examples. Building on such Japanese strengths, companies are working to create new values.

I get the impression that the national industrial technology policy has provided across-the-board support. It routinely spans various fields and covers a wide variety of spheres from seed research to societal implementation. I think it’s time to promote in-depth discussion on which direction Japan is aiming for.

Sasaki: As I’m engaged in biological science, a field of basic research, I sometimes feel out of place. This is because discussions surrounding innovation tend to focus on so-called exit strategies. Professors who have received Nobel prizes uniformly refer to the importance of basic research. Like them, I feel a sense of impending crisis regarding the current situation in which expenditure on basic research is sluggish, and there is a shortage of positions for researchers.

However, compared to other countries, including the U.S. and China, where national government initiatives see a concentration of policy resources devoted to high-tech industries and competitive fields, there remains space in Japan for basic research that is not constrained by the end-product. It’s very difficult to restore environments for basic research once their foundation is lost. I think Japan should turn its unique environment into a strength.

Komiya: Right. These days we often hear discussions surrounding the lack of understanding of basic research, in which it is difficult to see how it works, and its benefits.

Sasaki: The works of Osamu Shimomura, winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize in chemistry for research into green fluorescent protein developed from jellyfish (Aequorea victoria), and Yoshinori Ohsumi, recipient of the 2016 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine on autophagy (the process of removing unnecessary proteins within a cell), were considered interesting from a biological phenomenon viewpoint. But people were not sure of the studies’ real value until it was discovered how such research could be applied.

Diversity, inclusion as drivers

Kajiwara: I believe the driving force behind innovation is diversity and inclusion.

Sasaki: Nagoya University has an open and vigorous atmosphere to proactively promote women and young researchers, thus I feel we are blessed with an environment to take on challenges.

The Division of Biological Science to which I belong has succeeded in increasing the ratio of its female faculty by around 30 percent over the past 10 years. Launched in 2013, the Institute of Transformative Bio-Molecules, where I’m engaged in research, was previously selected as a World Premier International Research Center Initiative by the education ministry. The average age of the center’s original, core members was roughly 40 years.

Future prediction keys

Kajiwara: I’m sure collaboration among different fields and integration with foreign elements are keys for innovation. This can also apply to organizational management and operations, let alone the frontlines of cutting-edge research and development.

The reason I place emphasis on diversity, especially inclusion, is a belief that the seeds of innovation occur in an environment where people respect each other, recognizing any differences and developing empathy, rather than people with different backgrounds and values just getting together. Whether it is possible to foster such an environment is a common task for the industrial and academic communities.

Tokuhiro: The promotion of diversity in research and development in Japan is an essential issue to address, given the low ratio of female researchers compared to other countries. I personally think we might as well come up with policies to ensure a certain ratio of female participation in some national research and development projects.

From the perspective of technology and innovation, there are many cases where the country’s systems, including strict quotas, and the applications and operations of such systems at universities do not adequately address technological progress and the nurturing of new personnel. So, I feel it’s increasingly essential for deregulation and to facilitate environments reflecting actual situations.

Sasaki: Nagoya University has promoted efforts to give students from different fields opportunities to consider joint research, allowing them to gain funding for successful proposals. The Principal Investigator, who supervises laboratories, judges the presentations. Judging criteria include whether the proposal crosses over different study areas, and addresses a challenging topic that could potentially subvert the thinking around entrenched ideas.

Clues to success

Komiya: The quality and number of joint industry and academic collaborations has improved. Recently, the merging of efforts between industry and academia, which is a result of such deepening collaborations, has seen companies setting up their research institutes at universities.

What successful instances of company-university merger efforts have in common is that the aims of their research and development are carefully discussed from the outset, when parties are cultivating their vision.

Kajiwara: Speaking about how companies operate, workers actively exercise their abilities if they feel aligned with clear visions and goals. At the same time, such a situation creates a positive cycle, attracting personnel to that company who identify with the organizational vision.

Paradigm shift for universities

Tokuhiro: I also feel that paradigm shift is necessary for universities. Frankly speaking, I think it is okay to have this bold idea that companies establish their own universities. In fact, Dyson Ltd. of the U.K. established The Dyson Institute of Engineering and Technology and SoftBank did something similar.

Moreover, the education ministry is considering introducing a system to allow private universities to “hand over” their departments. Using such a system would possibly make it easier for companies to establish their own universities.

Sasaki: It is a major task of how society can best utilize researchers who have advanced to studying at the doctorate level and are dedicated to their research, as well as spawning innovation — particularly in the area of biological science.

Recently, two young researchers from our laboratory were selected to participate in innovation creation programs by the Japan Science and Technology Agency. However, they then faced the situation of not being able to receive program support, as they had not held official university posts, despite being excellent researchers. I heard that such instances do not occur in other engineering fields.

Kajiwara: I understand; circumstances vary according to each department and division. I guess the government needs to review any relevant systems flexibly.

Komiya: I know that affinity is not so great between research and development, which moves faster, and the government’s framework. Government output toward policy goals is expected to proceed in a linear manner. Furthermore, government budgets are, in principle, created once a year.

We’d like to promote discussions on such topics, including issues that came up during the subcommittee discussion.