The Future Predicted by Technology

■ The Future Predicted by Technology

Joichi Ito's book, "The Future Predicted by Technology."

Born in Kyoto, Joi has held positions at the MIT Media Lab and earned a doctorate from Keio University; he is now president of Chiba Institute of Technology. Despite being younger, Joi has many similarities with me and is far ahead, discussing web3 with respect.

Here are some key points from his book that I found noteworthy:

・Lower Layer Focus

In web1-2, the application layer attracted financial investment. In web3, the focus shifts to the protocol layer.

The protocols for web1-2 were HTTP, and the apps were GAFA.

For web3, the protocols are Bitcoin and Ethereum.

-- Web3 is tech-oriented and user-centric, allowing users to escape platform monopolization and cross barriers.

・Participation

Web1 was about reading, web2 about writing, and web3 is about participating.

-- The book highlights the potential of DAOs. I share a deep interest in this area.

Participation requires "contribution," similar to the way everyone contributed to developing Hatsune Miku through singing and dancing.

・Project-based Work

Through DAOs, management and organizational structures transition to project-based work using tokens.

Hierarchies collapse, leading to wealth redistribution.

-- In my "Creating a Super Leisure Society," I argued that people would spread their time across multiple jobs, and the distribution of wealth generated by machines becomes critical. Web3 might provide a solution

・Fandom

NFTs extend beyond art and games to include uses in religion, such as verifying the authenticity of relics, becoming a vital tool for building fan communities.

-- The fandom-based "push economy" will become a core strategy in entertainment, supported by web3.

・Individual-centric Approach

Even individuals who struggle with communication can thrive in the metaverse.

In web3, individuals navigate across platforms, engaging through their own identities.

-- The empowerment and liberation of individuals, free from enclosures, are fundamental to web3.

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How to Handle Digital Trust

 ■ How to Handle Digital Trust

I participated as a speaker at the "World Digital Conference" organized by Nikkei.

Theme: Why is Digital Trust Necessary?

I first spoke at the World Digital Summit in 1999, during my time at the MIT Media Lab, after leaving Kasumigaseki. Although the digital climate was energized then, by the following year, the eJapan initiative presented by the government was still grappling with the two major challenges of education and informatization of administration—challenges that persisted even twenty years later in the policy agenda. The pandemic made us aware of our digital shortcomings.

The government has introduced strategies to promote data usage.

From the private sector perspective, the Super Education Association, which I am involved with, has been making recommendations on establishing data usage guidelines.

Although it took a decade to integrate PCs and other digital tools, leveraging data might take another decade. A collaborative effort involving industry, government, and academia is necessary.

Japan's overall Digital Transformation (DX) effort is somewhat precarious.

While the government has established a Digital Agency to focus on administrative DX, the incident in Yamaguchi Prefecture, where COVID-19 relief funds were mistakenly distributed, revealed that offices and banks were still exchanging data using floppy disks—not via the internet, cloud, AI, or Web3, highlighting the reality of Japan's digital landscape. Before we can fully embrace DX, there are more fundamental issues to address.

Q: What new challenges have arisen from advancements in DX within the educational sector?

A: An environment for utilizing data has been established, but the predominant feeling is one of anxiety, which has not been sufficiently countered by visible benefits. The introduction of PCs and digital textbooks was initially met with similar apprehensions. Demonstrating tangible outcomes, like children enjoying learning and improving academically, was crucial. The same principle applies to data.

Q: What are the issues with misinformation during events like the Ukraine invasion and the US presidential elections?

A: There are three key approaches: regulatory, technological, and educational, all of which require comprehensive planning. From a regulatory perspective, while the US lets GAFA handle data management, China maintains state control, and the EU employs a unified legal framework. Japan must decide which direction to align with. Technologically, solutions like AI filtering and digital distribution infrastructures are available. Beyond technology, enhancing literacy education is essential to develop the ability to discern the reliability of information and data and to foster proper digital engagement.

A: What role should governments and media play?

Q: The tasks are numerous, including establishing rules, developing technology, and educating. However, the first step for the government should be to embrace data usage themselves, beginning with simple measures like discontinuing the use of faxes and promoting open data to enable private sector usage.

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Maybe Lose the Fax Machines before Talking about DX??

■ Maybe Lose the Fax Machines before Talking about DX??

At the Digital Nation Japan Forum, I took the stage in a segment on the development of regional DX talent.  

The shortage of IT talent has gone unresolved for 20 years, with 40% of user companies facing shortages. At the same time, transitions from IT company to user company are only increasing. A sense of crisis is emerging in industry, which I view as a positive movement.

iU opened its doors to nurture DX talent. As conventional classroom learning would be ineffective, it is being built together with companies.

Practice trumps knowledge, so all participants learn while engaging in internships or entrepreneurship.

This is but a small-scale model. The intent is to expand such actions in collaboration with numerous schools.

Materials by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications point out four sectors in which Japan's IT utilization lags that overseas: government administration, healthcare, education, and management.　

The problems here are bureaucrats, doctors, teachers, and CEOs.

The problems lie more at the top levels than the bottom levels. Without change at the top, solutions are impossible. Government offices, hospitals, schools, and CEOs must be made to use digital technologies.

In industry-government-academic cooperation in the digital field, academia is the problem. A great gap divides industry and academia in Japan.

To date, the central government bureaucracy has shouldered platform functions in Japan.

The government took the lead in bringing together and guiding companies, in a style that has now reached its end. The role that academia should play is a significant one. The nation's universities should be mobilized.

In the collaboration between the city of Kyotango and iU, universities essentially serve as consultants to collaborate with relevant companies, promote regional government DX, and engage in education for high school students in the city. This is government-industry-academic collaboration at the local level.

Inquiries are coming in from other local governments, seeking advice on setting up similar frameworks.

Such initiatives could be advanced in collaboration with universities in many regions.

And yet.

There is a village in Yamaguchi Prefecture that mistakenly made transfers for 46.3 million yen. The transactions involved the floppy disks that are used by the village on an everyday basis.

That's what "digital" meant for them. Government offices and banks. The leaders in regions.

We talk about DX, but before that, let's use the Internet the way it is normally used.

Let's ditch the fax machines and introduce telework. We can start with these simple things.

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Start of the CiP Metaverse

■ Start of the CiP Metaverse

The opening greetings from the Metaverse Project launch event are as follows.  

The metaverse and Web3.0 have garnered attention as new policy issues.

The transformation of virtual spaces into parallel worlds has been anticipated since the dawn of the Internet.

Now, 25 years since Ultima Online and 15 years since Second Life, significant movement has accumulated.

Facebook's announcement of its rebranding as Meta in 2021 flipped a switch.

The metaverse has become a field drawing in new technologies such as VR, AR, NFTs, and blockchain.

It also becomes a venue for public functions serving education and tourism, along with entertainment such as gaming and music festivals.

The metaverse is envisioned as becoming a place where economic activities and lifestyles unfold, increasing people's dependence on it.

In no time, numerous policy challenges have surfaced.

These include rules for building metaverse spaces, intellectual property rules on issues such as copyright within those spaces, handling of data and personal information, technological standardization, and even taxation system support measures.

Numerous government ministries and agencies will also be involved.

As the metaverse is a borderless space transcending cities and nations alike, the establishment of rules and methods for conflict resolution will also be key topics.

International discussions on these have already begun.

However, reality here has yet to catch up to concepts, and policy discussions remain unfocused.

In discussions, Japan's first Minister for Digital Transformation Takuya Hirai raised troublesome issues like digital ownership rights, and expressed hopes that Japan would take the lead in finding solutions.

Yoshiko Tsuwaki of Japan's Digital Agency stated that the Agency would play a role in coordinating these issues, while Shigeaki Tanaka of the Intellectual Property Strategy Headquarters spoke about a soft-law approach to resolving issues of rights.

Minister Hirai, who says that building trust will be important, noted that Japan's earnest approach could be surprisingly helpful in eliminating the "fishiness" inherent in Web3.0. This is yet another major task to tackle. 

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What the Broadcasting Report Indicates

■ What the Broadcasting Report Indicates

I would like to comment on the report from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.

Shared use of physical assets: Joint investment by NHK and commercial broadcasters

　In 2006, commercial broadcasters were openly opposed to separation of physical and non-physical aspects. However, Michisada Hirose, chair of the Japan Commercial Broadcasters Association at the time, quietly called me aside and expressed a correct understanding that the change would mean the possibility of joint ownership of regional transmission towers. Concrete planning should be carried out already.

IP and cloud adoption

　In the UK, wired/wireless, broadcast, and telecommunications are transmitted in mixed format by both the BBC and commercial broadcasters, with full IP and cloud adoption atop separation of physical and non-physical aspects. From a cost perspective, this is a natural direction. However, while the UK carries this out through a foreign (Swedish) company, how Japan views broadcasting security is a point at issue.

Replacement of relay stations with IP unicasts

 Under both broadcast regulatory structures and the Copyright Act, structures and business in Japan have been distorted by superficial actions such as whether to apply multicast or unicast to network transmission methods. There is now a prime opportunity for a top-to-bottom rethinking of the relationship between technical methods and regulatory structure application.

Elimination of regional restrictions

　Regional restrictions were regulations set against the backdrop of broadcasting's "strength." With the internet now surpassing broadcasting in advertising revenue, however, and amid onslaught by foreign firms, the position of broadcasting has been relativized, and the purpose of placing constraints on the domestic industry is being reevaluated. A move toward relaxation is appropriate.

The positioning of NHK's Internet utilization operations

　NHK should considered Internet utilization among its core, not supplementary, operations, with the aim of transforming itself into a digital media entity akin to the UK's BBC or China's CCTV.

I have no other objections to the report and look forward to the implementation of policy.

At the same time, I find dissatisfaction with two points: the scant mention of "the world" and "data."

Looking first at "the world," amid upheavals in media overseas as in the US, China, and South Korea, what sort of position and strategy should Japan adopt?

What should Japan do with its idiosyncratic regulatory structure?

Japan's meager awareness here has become an international issue.

Then there is "data."

More so than any division between telecommunications and broadcasting, the utilization or non-utilization of data is the challenge faced today.

Internet media entities commercialize data, while broadcasting does not make use of data.

Television, a decade behind in telecommunications convergence, may lag another ten years in data convergence.

I see no awareness of this issue in the report.

What should be questioned before all is individual companies' strategies. What these past 15 years have taught us is that even if regulatory structures are laid out, holes remain unplugged if management does not take action.

What do individual companies intend to do about this? That's what I want to hear.

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Homework in Broadcasting, 15 Years Overdue

■ Homework in Broadcasting, 15 Years Overdue

The Study Group on the Ideal Broadcasting System in the Digital Age of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) released a draft report.

The report recommends a revision of regulatory structures to expand options for management, as well as enhancement of flexibility in physical, content-related, and management aspects.

I concur with this. The report was put together well.

1. Study the shared use of physical assets, including joint investment by NHK and commercial broadcasters.

2. Allow IP and cloud adoption as options.

3. Consider IP unicasts as a possible replacement for relay stations.

4. Eliminate regional restrictions for the exclusion of mass media concentration.

5. Enable the assimilation of broadcast programs across multiple regions.

6. Examine the positioning of NHK's Internet utilization operations.

All of these represent unfinished homework from 15 years ago, postponed following their discussion by the Council on the Ideal for Telecommunications and Broadcasting in 2006 under the Koizumi Cabinet's Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications Heizo Takenaka, and its follow-up Study Group on a Comprehensive Legal System for Communications and Broadcasting (in which I participated as a committee member) under the first Abe Cabinet's Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications Yoshihide Suga.

The discussions involved significant alteration of the legal framework for telecommunications and broadcasting to enable separation of physical and non-physical aspects and shared use of the telecommunications and broadcasting spectrum, and deregulation aimed at enabling cross-sector services.

On the point of expanding options for management, this aligns with the current study group.

However, nearly no new services or businesses utilizing the new legal framework have come out of the broadcasting industry, and in 15 years the digital market was scooped up by the Internet.

Simultaneous streaming has been implemented over a decade later in Japan than overseas. Regulatory structure remedies have been put in place, with the Copyright Act finally amended last year in response to calls from industry.

The direction proposed by the study group looks past the convergence of telecommunications and broadcasting and picks up remaining points for discussion to aid broadcasters in overcome increasingly difficult circumstances.

It can be seen as a final trimming on the broadcasting regulatory structure.

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Because They Wanted to Introduce Akiko Fuji as a Giant

 2024/11/3

■ Because They Wanted to Introduce Akiko Fuji as a Giant

Shin Ultraman, directed by Shinji Higuchi and supervised by Hideaki Anno, was a masterpiece.

Mr. Anno and I are the same age. Last autumn, I caught up with his doings at an exhibit at The National Art Center Tokyo.

I also once asked Mr. Higuchi, who is four years younger, about his hobbies at a Keio University event.

My attachment to the Ultraman of the 60s is even stronger than to Godzilla of the 50s and Kamen Rider of the 70s.

 

I wanted a Flash Beam. I wanted to wear the Science Special Search Party badge.

Those happy memories are a privilege exclusive to our generation, a paean illuminated by a beam.

I was deeply moved by the movie's inclusion of homages to Ultraman Q.

Gomess, Litra, Peguila, Pagos, Mammoth Flower, Goga.

And Neronga.

I like Neronga.

I want a pet Neronga.

Perhaps the aliens known as Mefilas were given semi-leading roles out of a wish to introduce SSSP Member Akiko Fuji as a giant.

I was reminded of the masterpiece "Giant Member Fuji versus King Ghidorah" by Makoto Aida.

Both Imit-Ultraman and Alien Zarab seemed secondary characters.

Even stars like Alien Baltan and the Kemur Man were intentionally left out,

I got it.

Even a flawless hero can be defeated.

Animosity – and a twisted reverence – toward Zetton. Childhood trauma.

All-out resistance by powerless humans. Childhood hope.

An homage to the impressions left in the hearts of youths, and new iterations.

These were depicted in full.

How far will the younger generation and foreigners go in squarely embracing this?

Neronga, Mephilas, Zetton.

The structure, with its focus on three episodes, also marked a gallant decision to discard the remaining 36 episodes that include Red King, Pigmon, Bullton, Gomora, Dada, and Seabozu.

I spoke with Takayuki Tsukagoshi, the chairman of Tsuburaya Productions, about production of the work.

The movie offered a complete depiction, didn't it.

"No, there's more to come."

Huh?

"We're making more."

Wow.

Hope for tomorrow springs forth.

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