Recommendations for an ultra-free society 7: Can the bureau director be AI?

 ■Recommendations for an ultra-free society 7: Can the bureau director be AI?          

　What jobs are suitable for me? If I were reborn, what would I like to become?

　I think at the start, I would probably choose to be a bureaucrat again. That’s because a bureaucrat is a generalist, which is suitable for an ultra-free society. Also, the path after the bureaucracy is a wide one. After leaving the bureaucracy, I went onto the paths of education and business. Not descending from heaven (a Japanese term referring to retiring government officials taking high-ranking positions in private industry), but ascending into heaven - I left the bureaucracy young. Conversely, the path from education or business into the bureaucracy is still narrow.

　At the moment, if one makes, or even forces, bureaucrats to wear two, three, or four pairs of straw sandals, they participate fairly actively. The situation was more lenient when I was still in the bureaucracy. While being a bureaucrat, I could write books or appear on TV, and could move freely. Because of the fierce criticism of bureaucrats and regulations on public servants that came later, generalists who represent the country are restricted today.

 　In an ultra-free society with AI, liberating these people is important. First, let’s reform the way bureaucrats work - or rather, liberate the way they play. The reforms have to start from the bureaucracy. Let’s start from government offices when we introduce AI. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry lets AI write its answers in the Diet; it seems like the role of the bureau director or the Assistant Vice-Minister could be done by AI, so let’s start around there by replacing them. Let’s make the government offices ultra-free by doing this, and have young bureaucrats go outside and do general work.

 　By the way, the ultra-free society when AI has arrived will be a world where change is inevitable, and generalists will have the advantage. In order to adapt to this, an attitude of enjoying change and seeing relearning as a matter of course will be important. But this doesn’t mean throwing away specialization - rather, I think it’s the work of creating a new area you specialize in every one to two years.

 　I’m also saying this because I was forced to go through it. Although I went to university for five years, I did nothing but music, and chose the generalist path of a bureaucrat without having a specialty; after that, I had no choice but to study the work that was in front of me.

 　My first assignment as a working adult was right in the midst of the war on telecommunications liberalization, and I had to thoroughly study transmission and exchange technology, the economics of information distribution, and laws regarding public enterprise monopolies in order to keep up. As for the automatic translation project I handled, I had to thoroughly study advanced technology regarding speech recognition and machine translation, or I wouldn’t have been taken notice of.

 　In the CATV/satellite department that I was assigned to next, I had to thoroughly study filming technology, laws regarding radio waves and broadcasting, as well as the structure of the advertising and content industries. During my transfer to the post office, I had to study the postal service, savings, and insurance, while during my transfer to Paris, I had to study French and the politics and economy of Europe. When I handled administrative reform, I had to study administrative law and state organizations. All this was a matter of course.

 　But it was even harder once I left. The moment I joined MIT, I couldn’t join conversations without frantically refreshing my knowledge about computers, AI, physical chemistry, or design, and when I worked at Sega, I couldn’t take part in meetings without knowing the ABCs of game production or semiconductors. It was things like this over and over again.

    In an ultra-free society, I think that extensive learning and training will be sought after in order to get through the free time. I long for this free society, but just because we’ll be free doesn’t mean it’ll be easy. These will be stimulating, stinging days.

The incentive to work will be to get better AI. Rather than beautiful clothing or sumptuous food, I would rather have good AI. And the way I’ll pass my free time in an ultra-free society will be entirely by training this AI. Get smarter, get smarter! Then get to work for me right away!