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The paper aims to analyze the content of the newly published National AI Ethics Guideline in Thailand. Thailand’s ongoing political struggles and transformation has made it a good case to see how a policy document such as a guideline in AI ethics becomes part of the transformations. Looking at how the two are interrelated will help illuminate the political and cultural dynamics of Thailand as well as how governance of ethics itself is conceptualized.

The author looks at the history of how the National AI Ethics Guidelines came to be and interprets its content, situating the Guideline within the contemporary history of the country as well as comparing the Guideline with some of the leading existing guidelines.

It is found that the Guideline represents an ambivalent and paradoxical nature that characterizes Thailand’s attempt at modernization. On the one hand, there is a desire to join the ranks of the more advanced economies, but, on the other hand, there is also a strong desire to maintain its own traditional values. Thailand has not been successful in resolving this tension yet, and this lack of success is shown in the way that content of the AI Ethics Guideline is presented.

The findings of the paper could be useful for further attempts in drafting and revising AI ethics guidelines in the future.

The paper represents the first attempt, so far as the author is aware, to analyze the content of the Thai AI Ethics Guideline critically.

This paper aims to examine the present status of the research field intercultural information ethics (IIE) including the foundational debate as well as specific issues.

A critical overview of the recent literature of the field is given.

The present IIE debate focuses on a narrow view of the field leaving aside comparative studies with non‐digital media as well as with other epochs and cultures. There is an emphasis on the question of privacy but other issues such as online communities, governmentality, gender issues, mobile phones, health care and the digital divide are on the agenda.

The paper addresses basic issues of IIE that may open new vistas for research and practice in this field.

The purpose of this study is to think ahead into the year 2035 and reflect on the ethical implications of brain-to-brain linking.

Philosophical argument.

It is quite likely that the direction of technological research today is heading toward a closer integration of mind and machine in 2035. What is interesting is that the integration also makes mind-mind or brain-brain integration possible too. There is nothing in principle that would prevent hooking up more than one brain to a machine, or connecting two or more brains together to harness their processing power to tackle a very complicated task. If that happens, the whole notion of what it is to be an individual and a self will have to be rethought. I have offered a way in which that can be done: Instead of viewing the self as being contained in a closed space traditionally defined by the skin, the self can expand outside of the skin and merge temporarily with other selves too. This also has profound implications on the notion of privacy, especially on how it is conceptualized and justified.

This research is limited to theoretical argumentation only. It relies on the current empirical and scientific investigations that are going on at the moment and provide ethical reflections on them.

We need to anticipate technological innovations to be more proactive in deliberating and formulating policy and ethical guidelines; otherwise, ethicists will just muse after the fact, implying that there is nothing further to be done.

Brain-to-brain linking has tremendous social implications, so is the ethical reflection on the issue.

Argument purporting to show the specific content in ethical guidelines on brain-to-brain interlinking based on the metaphysics of the self that is directly implicated by the technology has not been done before, according to the author’s best knowledge.

The purpose of this paper is to attempt to resolve some unclarity about the nature and character of intercultural information ethics (IIE).

By survey of some of the relevant literature, the paper identifies and explains the distinctive projects of IIE. In addition, to facilitate the achievement of these projects, the paper attempts to identify the most fruitful metaphysical and meta‐ethical assumptions about truth and moral truth. In particular, to identify and determine which of objectivist theories of truth and morality or intersubjectivist theories of truth and morality provides a better theoretical foundation for IIE.

Two projects are identified: a descriptive project and a normative project. It is argued that moral objectivism provides a better foundation for the normative (project than moral intersubjectivism (or, as it is sometimes called, normative cultural relativism) in the sense that objectivism provides a more solid ground for the principle grounding the normative project – namely that agreement among cultures on principles of information ethics is good or desirable. In other respects, it is concluded that moral objectivism and moral intersubjectivism do equally well in grounding the normative project.

The paper is the first to compare the two methodological approaches and points in the direction of the most fruitful approach to take in pursuing IIE.

Throughout the course of its history, Thailand has thrived on international commerce and interacting with global forces. During the past two centuries, Thailand has faced a progression of events threatening its self-definition requiring very conscious educational and cultural reform policies to offset the advances of globalized movements. The first series of reforms began to take place in the late 19th century and served as a defensive measure to fend off the onslaught of European colonial activity and to unify a disjointed society. This reform was used to primarily centralize the cultural and religious authority and power of the kingdom, while assimilating the local/regional/rural areas through education. The most recent reform in late 20th century was devised to fend off global market forces and to unify a disjointed society through a strategy of decentralization and educational reform. Both these reforms were countered with strong resistance movements that reflect a resistance heritage that aspires to civil society.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the possibility and desirability of artificial intelligence (AI) by considering western literature on AI and Buddhist doctrine.

The paper argues that these issues can best be considered examined from a variety of philosophical and religious viewpoints and that resolution of those issues depends on which point of view the questions are addressed from. There are a number of philosophical questions involving AI usually considered by philosophers: what is the definition of AI, what is a status of an AI as compared with human intelligence, is there a legitimate purpose for creating AI; if so, what is that purpose? Buddhism is a religion that is deeply philosophical and, perhaps to the surprise of western readers, has a lot to say about the nature of human mind and human intelligence. Although Buddhism does not talk explicitly about AI, the richness of its philosophical views concerning human nature and the nature of the physical world sheds considerable light on the philosophical questions stated above.

The paper explains how Buddhist teaching would answer the four questions above.

The paper is the first to clarify the Buddhist position on AI, and perhaps represents the first attempt to explore the relationships between any major religion and the AI agenda.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse incidents of personal information leakage in Japan based on Japanese socio‐cultural characteristics of information privacy and to consider how best to develop an effective personal information protection policy that conforms to Japanese situations as well as to the global requirement of personal information protection.

After describing recent incidents of personal information leakage in Japan, the paper examines the defects of the Act on Protection of Personal Information (APPI) that permit these incidents to continue. Subsequently, these incidents and the responses of the Japanese people in a manner that reflects the unique Japanese socio‐cultural characteristics of information privacy are analysed. Finally, the paper proposes a revision of APPI that conforms to these Japanese socio‐cultural characteristics as well as to the global requirement for personal information protection.

Personal information leakage cases and social responses in Japan reflect three Japanese socio‐cultural characteristics: Uchi/Soto awareness, insular collectivism and Hon'ne/Tatemae tradition. An effective law protecting personal information in Japan's cultural environment cannot be made simply by copying the privacy protection laws in western nations. Instead, legal protection of personal information should be drafted that reflects and takes into account these socio‐cultural characteristics.

This paper conducts analysis of incidents of personal information leakage in Japan based on Japanese socio‐cultural characteristics. A revision of APPI is proposed on the basis of the analysis. The paper's analysis and proposal would provide a good clue to develop effective measures to protect personal information and the right to information privacy in the global, multicultural information society.

The purpose of this paper is to explicate the influence of US national security approach on the Thai Government's national security, the criticisms on the US and Thai intelligence communities and ethical debates on national databases, including the introduction of the concepts of “spiritual computing” and Buddhism to the ethical aspect of intelligence databases.

The methodology of this paper is based on the interpretative approach which includes literature survey and interviews of the intelligence community (IC) in Thailand. The relevant literature survey consists of the literature on US intelligence databases for Homeland Security, criticisms of the IC, the ethical debate on national databases in the USA, the Thai National Security Council, ethical debates on the Internal Security Act and Computer Crime Act, Buddhism and “spiritual computing.”

The findings reflect that the US model of national security has significant influence on the Thai intelligence approach and application of IT for national security while both intelligence communities have similar intelligence problems and have raised ethical debates on violations of human rights.

The research limitations include the nature of the topic which is a closed subject under legal restrictions in Thailand so that the sources of official information could not be disclosed nor elaborated in details; and literature on this topic has not been widely available except unclassified information which limits a more in‐depth investigation and analysis.

The value of this paper lies in being the first attempt to throw light on a “forbidden” subject in Thailand by discussing the US experiences against the Thai case study. The application of “spiritual computing” and Buddhist precepts to the context of national security and intelligence databases could be a starting point for developing a “happier” and “successful” IC and possibly open a new approach to national security.