Harvard and Cambridge to attend Hong Kong forum on role of humanities in AI age

The Global University Presidents and Leaders Summit, organized by the Hong Kong Association for External Friendship, is set to take place on October 27 and 28 at the Convention and Exhibition Centre in Wan Chai. The summit will bring together over 50 university presidents and senior management, including Harvard and Cambridge, to discuss the role of humanities programs in the age of artificial intelligence.

Ten local university heads will moderate panel discussions on education, the future of the workforce, and AI. Government ministers from various bureaus will also attend the summit. Lawmaker and law professor Priscilla Leung Mei-fun, the founding president of the association, emphasized the importance of humanities programs and the value of philosophers in AI development.

She questioned whether institutions are merely competing to be the fastest in AI development, potentially losing their way. Leung noted that AI companies are beginning to hire philosophy graduates to guide ethical principles for technology use, and that students studying AI in the future might also need to take humanities courses.

The forum will provide a platform for students and institutional leaders from outside Hong Kong to learn more about the city, as many Westerners, especially the younger generation, have never visited Hong Kong. The second edition of the forum, which began in 2024, will also focus on university towns in the Northern Metropolis and collaboration between government, industry, academia, research, and investment.

The government has opened applications for institutions to submit proposals for the first university town in Hung Shui Kiu, with results expected in early 2027. Leung stated that universities with vision could invest in these new education towns by collaborating with other institutions, helping them open up the vast Chinese market.

She acknowledged that it would be a significant challenge for overseas institutions to establish themselves in the university towns, as it is a self-financing project. However, she emphasized that prestigious universities have the financial means to invest and that Hong Kong could offer them a window into the immense Chinese market.

Leung stressed the need for Hong Kong to close the gap between research and industry, as the mainland moved early by promising support for overseas talent to return to Shenzhen with their intellectual property. Policymakers and investors must personally visit university laboratories to identify promising work with commercial potential.