A one-day forum on digital technologies and computational social science—a nascent interdisciplinary field that applies computational techniques to studying social phenomena—was held by the Faculty of Social Science in late June.

Drawing computer scientists, social scientists and industry practitioners from Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea, the CUHK-SMU Global Forum themed “A Whole New World with Computational Social Science: Transdisciplinary Insights” was a timely gathering of minds, as digital transformation is reshaping our lives, academia and society. The panelists touched on key questions arising in the field of computational social science, such as protecting citizens from ill-founded insights stemming from flawed algorithms and invalid data, AI and androids’ potential to replace human jobs, human-only abilities and ways to optimise human-AI partnership in work and life, and redefinition of intellectual properties, as humans and AI co-create and share knowledge.

The forum, co-hosted by CUHK and the Singapore Management University (SMU), started with welcoming remarks from Professor Rocky Tuan, Vice-Chancellor and President of CUHK, Professor Lily Kong, President of SMU, and Ong Siew-gay, Consul-General of Singapore in Hong Kong.