Exploratory study on the influence of western values internalized in Generative AI on decision-making in earthquake disaster recovery

Abstract

This study investigated the impact of Western values inherent in Western-derived generative AI on decision-making in the post-earthquake recovery of road bridges, assuming the use of generative AI for such decisions. The procedure involved first identifying differences in values between Japanese and U.S. manuals for post-earthquake recovery of road bridges, then presenting ethically challenging scenarios from actual disaster recovery scenarios to a large language model (LLM), analyzing its responses, and quantitatively evaluating the circumstances under which Western values emerge. The results revealed that in decision-making scenarios related to safety management, inspection priorities, traffic reopening decisions, selection of recovery specifications, and pre-earthquake seismic reinforcement, many generative AI systems made judgments similar to those based on U.S. manuals.