Research Report Challenges in Implementing Universal Services in Society

Over the recent years, there has been the emergence of services that enable anyone with or without disability to enjoy television broadcasts and other content. NHK has also introduced universal services for part of its sports coverage, including CG sign language play-by-play and robot play-by-play with captions. Meanwhile, the social implementations of cutting-edge technologies, such as the utilization of AI, accompany new issues that should be discussed with the change of times, such as ethical matters and legal implications. Since April 2021, the NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute and the NHK Science & Technology Research Laboratories (STRL) have been collaborating in order to study various challenges associated with the practical application of universal services from the viewpoint of ethical, legal, and social issues (ELSI). Simply put, ELSI is an acronym for “ethical, legal, and social issues,” which refers to all non-technical issues that may arise in the course of research and development of new technologies as well as their social implementations. Grounded in this idea, our particular focus is exploring how media companies are addressing ELSI from the perspective of universal services. In FY2021, we conducted surveys on external trends at corporations and academic societies both home and abroad, studied past cases, and interviewed STRL researchers to identify issues. For the next fiscal year, we plan to work together with potential users of universal services, external services, ELSI experts in order to compile cases and solve problems.