Japan is remarkably open to AI, but slow to make use of it

The land of Doraemon embraces the new technology in theory but not in practice
哆啦A梦之国在理论上拥抱新技术，但在实践中却并未拥抱新技术

2024年10月24日 05:34 上午

WHICH CULTURAL icons come to mind when an American thinks of artificial intelligence (AI)? The cyborgs of the “Terminator” film series, or Hal of Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey”—rogue computer systems that rise up to destroy their human creators. What does a Japanese person recall? Doraemon, the friendly robot helper of an enormously popular eponymous anime series. So goes an anecdote making the rounds in Japanese tech circles. It suggests that Japan is a land of opportunity when it comes to AI.

当美国人想到人工智能 (AI) 时，他的脑海中会浮现哪些文化偶像？ 《终结者》系列电影中的机器人，或者斯坦利·库布里克的《2001：太空漫游》中的哈尔，都是流氓计算机系统，它们崛起并摧毁了它们的人类创造者。日本人会回忆起什么？哆啦A梦是广受欢迎的同名动漫系列中的友善机器人帮手。日本科技界流传着这样一个轶事。这表明日本在人工智能方面是一片充满机遇的土地。

The tale is instructive. Japanese do feel relatively little angst about AI. Only 25% of Japanese say that products and services using it make them nervous, the lowest share among 32 countries surveyed this year by Ipsos, a market research firm. On average, 50% of global respondents feel nervous, and the share rises to 64% in America. Few Japanese reckon AI will hasten the apocalypse: just 12% of Japanese think that it will make the future worse, the second-lowest share in a study of 21 countries conducted last year by the University of Toronto. Fully 36% of Americans fear the AI future. As Sam Altman, the boss of OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, put it last year while visiting Tokyo, the site of his firm’s first office in Asia: “There’s a long history of humans and machines working together here to embrace automation technology.”

这个故事很有启发性。日本人对人工智能确实感到相对较少的焦虑。只有 25% 的日本人表示使用它的产品和服务让他们感到紧张，这是市场研究公司益普索 (Ipsos) 今年调查的 32 个国家中比例最低的。全球平均有 50% 的受访者感到紧张，而美国这一比例上升至 64%。很少有日本人认为人工智能会加速世界末日的到来：只有 12% 的日本人认为人工智能会让未来变得更糟，这是多伦多大学去年对 21 个国家进行的一项研究中比例第二低的人。整整 36% 的美国人担心人工智能的未来。正如 ChatGPT 的制造商 OpenAI 的老板 Sam Altman 去年访问东京（该公司在亚洲的第一个办事处所在地）时所说：“人类和机器在这里合作拥抱自动化技术有着悠久的历史。”

Japanese leaders have positioned the country as open for AI business. With a shrinking, greying population, Japan has little to fear in terms of job losses and lots to gain in terms of potential productivity improvements. So far Japan has no comprehensive legal regulations on AI, and it has allowed tech companies to train their models on copyrighted content. The ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has called for Japan to become “the world’s most AI-friendly country”. This spring the LDP even turned to AI to generate a new catchphrase for a political poster backing then-prime minister Kishida Fumio: “Economic revitalisation: providing tangible results”. (The results of the slogan, alas, left much to be desired: Mr Kishida was replaced this month and the party is battling to maintain its majority in lower-house elections on October 27th.)

日本领导人已将该国定位为对人工智能业务开放。随着人口的减少和老龄化，日本不必担心失业，而且在潜在的生产率提高方面可以获得很多好处。到目前为止，日本还没有关于人工智能的全面法律法规，并且允许科技公司在受版权保护的内容上训练他们的模型。执政的自民党（LDP）呼吁日本成为“世界上对人工智能最友好的国家”。今年春天，自民党甚至求助于人工智能，为支持时任首相岸田文雄的政治海报生成了新的标语：“经济振兴：提供切实成果”。 （唉，这个口号的结果却不尽如人意：岸田先生本月被替换，该党正在努力维持 10 月 27 日众议院选举中的多数席位。） 

Intriguing applications of AI can be found across different sectors in Japan. Construction companies have used it to improve efficiency on job sites; tech investors are keen on more such innovations at the intersection of AI and hardware, where Japanese firms have traditionally been strong. The city government in Yokosuka, south of Tokyo, has reported big productivity gains since implementing ChatGPT to help with administrative tasks; the Tokyo metropolitan government is using AI to detect fires and improve disaster-response times. Qudan Rie, last year’s winner of the Akutagawa Prize, a prestigious award for the best work of fiction by an up-and-coming author, used ChatGPT to generate sections of her novel where an AI speaks. Though her revelation generated some controversy, she was allowed to keep the award. 

在日本的不同领域都可以发现人工智能的有趣应用。建筑公司已使用它来提高工地效率；科技投资者热衷于在人工智能和硬件交叉领域进行更多此类创新，而日本企业在这方面历来表现强劲。东京南部横须贺市政府报告称，自从实施 ChatGPT 来帮助完成行政任务以来，生产力大幅提高；东京都政府正在使用人工智能来检测火灾并缩短灾难响应时间。去年芥川奖得主 Qudan Rie 使用 ChatGPT 在她的小说中生成了由人工智能说话的部分。芥川奖是一项著名奖项，旨在奖励新晋作家的最佳小说作品。尽管她的揭露引起了一些争议，但她被允许保留该奖项。 

Yet for all of Japan’s openness towards AI, it is failing to capitalise on the opportunity. Masayoshi Son, the boss of SoftBank and Japan’s most famous tech investor, has been warning for years that his home country has been behind the curve. Earlier this month he chastised Japanese firms for focusing on small-scale systems, rather than building ambitious AI giants. None of the “foundation models”—the algorithms that power generative AI—released between 2019 and 2023 originated from Japan, according to Stanford University. (America accounted for the most, with 182.) Tellingly, the hottest Japan-based AI startup is Sakana AI, which is led by two non-Japanese alumni of Google’s AI division.

然而，尽管日本对人工智能持开放态度，但它却未能利用这个机会。软银老板、日本最著名的科技投资者孙正义多年来一直警告说，他的祖国已经落后了。本月早些时候，他批评日本公司专注于小型系统，而不是建立雄心勃勃的人工智能巨头。斯坦福大学称，2019 年至 2023 年间发布的“基础模型”（为生成型人工智能提供动力的算法）均不是源自日本。（美国占比最高，有 182 家。）值得注意的是，日本最热门的人工智能初创公司是 Sakana AI，该公司由谷歌人工智能部门的两名非日本校友领导。

Japanese institutions remain strikingly risk-averse and slow to adopt new technology. Using AI on an individual basis is easy, but “doing something deeper—transforming systems or how companies work—that’s a different story”, says Matsuo Yutaka, who chairs the government’s AI council. A government survey released this summer shows that less than half of Japanese firms are using generative AI tools, compared with over 80% in America or China. Among the small and medium-sized enterprises that make up the vast majority of Japanese companies, the situation may be even worse: less than 20% of Japanese SMEs are utilising generative AI, according to a recent survey by Teikoku Databank, a research firm in Tokyo. When it comes to AI, Japan does have something to fear: being left behind.■

日本机构仍然极度厌恶风险，并且在采用新技术方面进展缓慢。个人使用人工智能很容易，但“做一些更深层次的事情——改变系统或公司的运作方式——那就是另一回事了”，政府人工智能委员会主席松尾裕表示。今年夏天发布的一项政府调查显示，只有不到一半的日本公司正在使用生成式人工智能工具，而美国或中国的这一比例超过 80%。在占日本企业绝大多数的中小企业中，情况可能更糟：日本研究公司帝国数据库最近的一项调查显示，只有不到 20% 的在东京的日本中小企业正在使用生成式人工智能。在人工智能方面，日本确实有一些担心：被抛在后面。■