Introduction

I interviewed Atsushi (pseudonym), a second-year student at a private university in Tokyo. His major is information engineering. He used his knowledge in this interview. He would like to create AI to make an ideal society. His ideal society is “a society where people focus on their goals and robots do all the other chores.” People will be able to spend their spare time pursuing their hobbies.

Throughout this interview, I had a strong impression of his ideal society in 2050. Let us take a closer look at the parts of the interview where this becomes apparent. 

We don’t have to do what people don’t have to do

Tasks that people don’t have to do – what exactly are those? There has been a lot of talk about “jobs that will disappear” and “jobs that will never disappear”. I had no chance to think about this issue myself, so I asked him for his thoughts. 

“In some places, the role of the cashier is already performed by machines as well as people. It would be good if that kind of application of AI were to increase.”

Well, indeed, this use of AI is not yet a widespread phenomenon, but some businesses have introduced self-checkout systems. He has a good eye and I can see what he means. On the other hand, my thoughts were that this might lead to depriving people of their jobs and thus create more unemployment. When I put this to him, he said, “it’s fine as long as human life is not negatively affected”. His idea is to create a society where humans do what only humans can do, not where jobs are taken away. 

A society in which humans do what only they can do

When you think about it, the phrase “we don’t have to do what people don’t have to do” could be misunderstood. It seems that he regards the role of AI as simply to assist humans. I asked him whether AI would expand humans’ future career choices. “In my view, I think it will expand. Originally, I wasn’t thinking of AI replacing physical labor. However, the number of functions we can assign to AI will increase, in areas such as jobs which require mental effort like engineering.” Many informants were thinking the range of job opportunities available would be narrowed, so his answer surprised me, and I could see his confidence in his own abilities. 

The ideal AI

He talked about a society in which people utilize AI in such a way that it helps humans. Humans should always be in control of AI. There is no doubt that AI has great potential as a tool. His positive attitude towards AI is limited to its uses as a “tool”. He did not express any confidence in the idea of humans coexisting with robots. In conclusion, his vision was to create more time for humans by having AI perform the tasks humans generally do at present. 

Conclusion

In this article, we looked at the practical features of an ideal society as envisioned by Atsushi. Interestingly, everyone has their own ideas. Please take the time to read all the articles!