[Event Report] The Future of Co-creation between AI and Humanities: '1st HUMAI Essay Final Judging'

The final judging session to select the best works from the 'HUMAI Anthology,' written by the first cohort of the 'Nippon Foundation HUMAI Program,' which promotes the fusion of humanities and AI, was held on Sunday, April 5, 2026, at Genron Cafe in Gotanda, Tokyo. The Nippon Foundation HUMAI Program is a space for university students, graduate students, and postdocs interested in humanities and social sciences to interact across disciplines. In this judging session, 8 essays were selected from the first cohort, and the venue featured presentations by the authors and intense Q&A sessions with the judges. The five judges included Hiroki Azuma, Asa Ito, Daisuke Katsura, Ryosuke Kawakami, and Shin Kono. The top prizes were awarded to Yuji Iwai for 'The Scaffold Keeps Moving: The Future of Humanities Seen from 8 Months of Collaboration with AI' and Ibuki Takata for 'Defining Sub-symbols: A Grammatological Positioning of Connectionism.' The winning works are scheduled to be published in the criticism magazine 'Genron 19' in the fall of 2026.