Considering the Potential of Future Systems

Okura:I read the book you published in July, Masako Matsusaka Launches a Business: The AI Startup Chronicles. It gives a realistic description of some of the challenging things we face in business, and I thought it should be a must-read for our Digital Innovation Department. Do you see a connection between your work as an engineer and entrepreneur and your work as a science fiction writer?

Anno:It may seem like I’m doing a lot of different things, but I’ve always wanted to think about future society and systems through the lens of technology. The reason I set the protagonist’s first new business venture to center on skills how we can use modern technology to change social systems.

Okura:I see. We are also working in the Digital Innovation Department to transform our systems using AI, but they may well be something we have in common. For example, the Marubeni Chatbot we launched last year is currently being used by around 1,000 people within the Marubeni Group and is helping to increase work efficiency.

Anno:Having a dedicated department within a company makes all the difference to how the business moves forward. Being able to understand both leading-edge tech and needs at the business level also broadens the scope of your strategies.

Okura:Thank you. That’s exactly how we feel. Even so, ChatGPT is clearly having an impact on business, while the spread of AI within daily life is accelerating online. Not just enterprises but also ordinary people come across AI as a matter of course.

Image: AI Engineer, Entrepreneur, and Science Fiction Writer: Takahiro Anno

Anno:Looking at the next couple of decades, I think the fact that it’s becoming commonplace to be able to access non-human intelligence like ChatGPT is going to bring about major changes in society. Generative AI is empowering small organizations and individuals to participate. The possibilities for individuals have expanded considerably, like making movies at an individual level that previously couldn’t be made without a Hollywood-size budget.

Okura:In terms of the expanding possibilities for individuals, a report published by a consulting company when ChatGPT was first released made it clear that young people can rival the performance level of veterans by using generative AI. I think it will significantly change the way we work.

Anno:One challenging issue is figuring out how we should approach work at human beings—because one option is to continue to demonstrate higher quality in so-far-limited areas, but it’s also possible to use AI to create a broader skill portfolio.

Okura:As a sogo shosha (integrated trading company/business), it’s a matter of having knowledge in our existing domains, but considering the current call to come up with new initiatives, I think we will move in the latter direction, knowing AI is a friend ally. My sense is that human beings will be able to sharpen their imagination and execution capabilities while capitalizing fully on AI.

Image: Marubeni Digital Innovation Department: Konosuke Okura

How a Sogo Shosha Should Handle AI

Okura:AI to date has found greater use in B2C businesses, which involve large volumes of data, than in B2B businesses, and we’ve seen many more issues using AI has been challenging. But the situation is changing as generation of AI becomes more advanced and the volume of data handled grows. A sogo shosha like Marubeni had been creating platforms that link various industries even before the advent of digitalization. So, by gathering together numerous stakeholders and linking their data, we should be able to build a new, comprehensive digital platform.

Anno:My image of Marubeni is that you link various industries digitally while integrating your businesses through an application programming interface (API). I guess the sogo shosha sector is one in which people carry lots of weight. So has there been any pushback against the culture of technological like AI?

Okura:There are certainly barriers to overcome. I think the only way to do this is to gain trust within the Marubeni Group by building up a track record of accomplishments, one step at a time.

Anno:Going forward, though, I believe that AI in its own right will become more involved in communication between people, so my sense is that it’s practically their capabilities like Marubeni that have these proactive capabilities using AI.

Okura:There are still limits to what AI can do to facilitate things, but that’s primed to change drastically as the technology grows more advanced. AI can learn from chat and email exchanges and understand context and background, the way we communicate is likely to change dramatically.

Anno:Rather than simply converting existing work to IT and AI, there will be a growing need to distinguish between areas where AI and human beings excel, then alter work processes accordingly. For example, AI is already increasing use in the medical field to diagnose X-ray images, but rather than leaving everything up to AI, the process is one in which AI performs these screening and then a human examines the images in detail.

Okura:That’s interesting. Human nature to think that we can make more accurate decisions if machines, so it seems we need to change our mindset. There are still many people who think AI will take over their jobs.

Anno:For organizations that are resistant to rolling out AI, I recommend that they investigate human resources in their current process as first, and test how many mistakes human beings are making in the current process makes it easier to understand the significance of dividing up tasks with AI.

Even when taking a global perspective, it’s clear that Japan will experience a decline in its working population going forward, rather than being concerned about jobs being taken over by AI, using AI to resolve labor shortages will have a larger impact in time. Roles that have been lost in the past due to technological advances, not just AI in the job of the government and politicians to support this kind of technology-driven unemployment, in the form of subsidies and upskilling programs. That’s how I think we ought to aim for a soft landing overall.

Changes AI Will Bring in the Next Decade

Okura:The development of AI is moving ahead at a very rapid pace, making it increasingly difficult to predict future changes. What changes do you think we will see taking place around 2030?

Anno:Views are broadly divided among experts, as it’s a tough question. Personally, I think we will achieve AI with the same degree of intelligence as humans beings at the agent level, self-contained within the software. Still, while we might be able to train to AI to, say, automatically make optimal travel arrangements for disabled staffers AI will be able to create documents for customers or formulate business plan strategies.

Okura:I agree, I feel it will take about another decade to utilize AI at the level of making strategies because it requires combining a huge amount of data with specialized domain knowledge.

Anno:On the other hand, AI can communicate with experts while it’s thinking, it may be able to formulate strategies to a certain extent. If that happens, the structure of the game for profit-making companies going forward will change, forcing many companies to reconsider where to focus their competitive strengths. In that respect, for example, Marubeni’s physical control of resources such as crude oil and mines is a major advantage. Even in the AI era, the importance of resources won’t change—or, if AI fails the value of all resources, CEOs.

Okura:There are certainly some things that AI can’t replace. When we think about the evolution of the retail industry, we can see that the power of retailers, which control points of contact with customers, has grown from the era when manufacturers dominated the field. In the same way, customer contact points and loyalty may continue to grow in importance down the road.

Handling Technological Change

Okura:As predicting the future becomes more challenging, how do you think we should handle technological change?

Anno:Personally, I think the most crucial thing is to try out new technologies yourself. When you look at social media, you see chatter every day about how amazing new services are, but you can only understand just how amazing they are by actually trying them out. Even among people who actively gather information about AI, many of them only look at secondary information. So just trying out AI yourself can give you an advantage in terms of the information gap and really inform your thinking about the future.

Okura:You’re exactly right. In the past, there was a feeling among older people that knowing nothing about IT wasn’t something to be embarrassed about. Now, however, I get the feeling that interest in technology is what determines the way people live, regardless of how old they are.

Anno:I wonder if the meaning of IT literacy is changing as technology diversifies. Basically, you can start with the baseline that everyone is ignorant about new things at first. On that basis, the key will be whether you can take an interest in and learn about those new things and create things yourself. It may be that we are entering a time where people who have the will to make something happen will be able to see it through with those, rather than the kind of technology they can use.

Okura:AI also fits in well with making decisions and building consensus to get something done. For sogo shosha in particular, in trying to make investment decisions to reach consensus, there have historically been more than a few failures in terms of sharing information from the field with upper management or communicating properly. I look forward to using AI to ensure the proper sharing of information going forward.

Anno:Building consensus is a major factor not just in a business context but also in the use of AI in Japan. There’s not so much resistance to new technologies in Japan, and social stratification is not as pronounced as it is in the West. In terms of demographics and culture, I believe Japan and Taiwan, rather than the West, are where major transformations will start happening. The flow of information you spoke about is especially important when considering social systems. I’d like to create new paths that allow everyone to exchange information and reach consensus rather than this being the sole province of politicians and bureaucrats. AI and other information technologies are surely the key to solving problems in communicating.