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Author: akiokawato

  • Where the Space and AI Investment Frenzy May End Up: Lessons from Britain’s Railway Mania

    Elon Musk’s SpaceX went public on June 12, raising the equivalent of roughly $80 billion in a single IPO. Although its share price has eased somewhat since then, the company’s market capitalization still stood at about $1.8 trillion in mid-July, making it one of the seven to ten most valuable companies in the world.

    For comparison, the ten largest companies in the S&P 500 now account for nearly 40 percent of the index’s total market value. They are almost entirely technology and AI companies—including SpaceX.

    .

    At first glance, this looks like a classic bubble. But the more I thought about it, the more I came to a different conclusion.

    Whenever a revolutionary new industry suddenly emerges and begins expanding at breathtaking speed, it is only natural that surplus capital flows into it. The railway boom in Britain during the mid-nineteenth century may be the best historical example.

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    However, collecting reliable historical statistics is a daunting task. I spent countless hours doing exactly that while writing my book In Search of Lost Modernity. This time I asked ChatGPT to gather the available evidence instead. The figures below are drawn from well-established historical research.

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    1. Railway investment exploded.

    Investment in British railway construction rose from about £13 million in 1845 to £30 million in 1846, and then to £44 million in 1847.

    The £44 million invested in 1847 amounted to roughly 8 percent of Britain’s GDP and was about twice the country’s military budget that year. Investment did not return to its 1845 level until around 1850.

    At its peak, railway construction absorbed 7 to 8 percent of GDP and nearly half of all investment in Britain.

    This was a textbook example of surplus capital pouring into a transformative new technology.

    Unlike the Dutch Tulip Mania of the seventeenth century, though, this investment left behind a lasting physical asset: a national railway network. Britain’s operating railways expanded from 1,951 miles in 1842 to 6,123 miles by 1850—more than tripling in less than a decade.

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    2. The boom transformed heavy industry.

    Railway construction fueled Britain’s iron and machinery industries. Between 1844 and 1851, roughly 18 percent of British pig iron production went directly into railway construction.

    After 1852, exports became the main engine of growth, and railways accounted for less than 10 percent of iron output.

    Railways alone did not create Britain’s industrial expansion. Technological innovations such as the hot-blast furnace, growing export markets, and rising demand from other industries also played essential roles.

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    3. Why did the bubble form?

    Three factors stand out.

    First, existing railways had been highly profitable. Average railway dividends rose from about 4.4 percent in 1843 to 7.0 percent in 1847, convincing investors that railways were virtually guaranteed to make money.

    Second, the mechanism of railway shares encouraged speculation; investors typically paid only about 10 percent down, with the remainder called later as construction progressed. This effectively created leverage and drew ordinary middle-class investors into the market.

    Third, Parliament approved railway projects at an extraordinary pace. In 1846 alone, Parliament authorized 263 railway bills, covering about 9,500 miles of proposed routes (Roughly one-third of those lines were never built).

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    4. How the bubble burst

    Railway share prices peaked around August 1845.

    By the end of November they had fallen 18.2 percent, and by April 1850 they were down 57.5 percent from their peak.

    Yet actual construction spending continued to rise and did not peak until 1847.

    This pattern is strikingly similar to today’s investment in AI data centers and the space industry. Financial markets can collapse long before physical investment slows, because projects already under contract continue moving forward.

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    5. Why did it collapse?

    Three factors explain the downturn.

    First, construction costs proved far higher than expected. Early estimates put railway construction at around £15,600 per mile, but actual average costs between 1844 and 1851 reached roughly £30,000 to £35,000 per mile.

    Second, revenue projections turned out to be overly optimistic. Average railway income declined from about £3,470 per mile in 1845 to roughly £2,080 by 1850. As more branch lines were built, traffic was spread across a larger network and profitability fell.

    Third, financial conditions deteriorated sharply. Poor harvests in 1846 and 1847, together with the Irish Famine, increased food imports and drained Britain’s gold reserves. Bound by the Bank Charter Act of 1844, the Bank of England tightened credit. A severe commercial crisis followed in 1847, ending only after the government temporarily relaxed the Act’s restrictions in October.

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    6. The economic consequences

    Investors suffered heavy losses. By 1850 railway shares had lost more than half their value, wiping out much of the wealth of Britain’s middle-class investors.

    Railway dividends fell from 7.0 percent in 1847 to 2.4 percent by 1852.

    The wider economy experienced a commercial crisis, tighter credit, and numerous business and bank failures. But Britain did not fall into a prolonged depression like that of the 1930s.

    Railway construction itself continued. By 1850 the rail network had expanded dramatically, permanently improving Britain’s transportation system and strengthening its long-term economic productivity.

    .

    In short, investors lost money, but the nation ultimately benefited. That is the classic pattern of a technology bubble.

    Today’s boom in SpaceX, AI infrastructure, and data-center construction has many similarities.

    The main difference is that the economic benefits of railways became visible relatively quickly through a physical transportation network. In contrast, the future earnings potential of SpaceX and AI remains far more uncertain. Markets are struggling to estimate the value of technologies whose ultimate commercial impact is still impossible to measure with confidence.

  • Japan should avoid unnecessarily provoking China－On the Occasion of the Renewal of the National Security Strategy


    Akio Kawato
    Former Ambassador to Uzbekistan; Former DCM, Embassy of Japan in Russia

    .

    (Japan is currently conducting its once-every-few-years review of national security policy. As a result, the country’s three core strategic documents—the National Security Strategy, the National Defense Strategy, and the Defense Buildup Program—are being revised.

    Recently, the Research Institute for Peace and Security (RIPS) published a collection of policy recommendations by experts from both the public and private sectors. Since an English edition does not yet appear to be available, I am posting here only my own contribution in English.

    .

    My proposal does not deal with familiar topics such as what percentage of GDP Japan should spend on defense or how far the range of its missiles should be extended. Instead, it focuses on three broader questions: how Japan should respond to the gradual decline of American power; how it can prevent a recurrence of the military’s unchecked autonomy that helped lead Japan into the Pacific War; and how the Self-Defense Forces should adapt to an era in which young people throughout the world are increasingly reluctant to serve in the military.)

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    I. A Changing International Environment: An Era in Which U.S.-Russia, U.S.-China, and U.S.-North Korea Confrontation May No Longer Be a Given

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    In the decades following World War II, confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union—and later between the United States and China—formed the basic framework of international politics. Alliance structures were built around that reality. This reflected the fact that Europe and Japan were devastated after the war, while the victorious Soviet Union was able to expand its sphere of influence with relatively little resistance.

    .

      Today, however, Soviet communism has disappeared, while the Trump administration has shown far less commitment to the traditional American values of freedom and democracy. Relations among the major powers have increasingly become matters of power politics and pragmatic bargaining rather than ideological competition.

      The international system is beginning to resemble the pre-World War II era, when Europe, Russia, Japan, the United States, and China constantly formed and dissolved alignments according to shifting national interests.

      At the same time, South Korea and the ASEAN countries—once regarded primarily as security dependents—have developed into independent political, economic, and military actors in their own right.

      The recent conflict with Iran also demonstrated that American military power has practical limits. In any future Taiwan contingency, the scale of direct U.S. military involvement is therefore likely to be more limited than many in Japan currently assume.

      .

      Japan’s future security strategy should therefore be designed to accommodate a range of possible futures—from one centered firmly on the existing U.S.-Japan alliance to one that also incorporates a degree of accommodation with China.

      Regardless of which strategic environment ultimately emerges, strengthening Japan’s own defense capabilities will remain a permanent national task. Accordingly, this thesis does not attempt to develop detailed contingency plans corresponding to varying levels of alliance cooperation with the United States.

      A weakening of the alliance would inevitably activate the question of nuclear deterrence. Whether Japan should acquire its own nuclear capability is an issue of enormous importance. However, since I remain unconvinced about either the necessity or the effectiveness of Japanese nuclear armament, I limit myself here to acknowledging the issue rather than advocating a particular solution.

      .

      Instead, I wish to focus on the need for Japan to change the way it presents its diplomacy in light of the evolving international environment described above.

      .

      The previous National Security Strategy was built upon the concept of “working with the United States to contain China while mobilizing other Asia-Pacific countries.” That formulation no longer reflects the realities of today’s Asia. If Japan continues to define its strategy in those terms, it risks isolating itself from many of its neighbors.

      .

      One possible alternative would be to advocate a broader regional framework in which the United States, China, Japan, and the other Asia-Pacific countries all participate in maintaining regional peace under the principle of non-use of force. In other words, every major participant would voluntarily accept mutual restraints.

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      Such an arrangement would resemble, in spirit, the Washington Treaty System of the 1920s. It would certainly be imperfect, but it would still be preferable to a situation where we have no regional framework at all, and it could provide Japan with a constructive diplomatic vision.

      .

      II. Transforming Communication Between the State and Society

      .

      One striking omission from Japan’s 2022 security documents is the almost complete absence of discussion about communication with Japanese society itself. Public outreach receives remarkably little attention.

      This is particularly unfortunate because many marxism-oriented opposition parties have shifted from the ideological assumptions of the Cold War—when the United States was often portrayed as inherently “bad”(in the eyes of the opposition parties) and the Soviet Union or China as inherently “good.”

      Japan today has a much greater opportunity for realistic, bipartisan debate on national security.

      .

      Improving the status and public standing of the Self-Defense Forces is certainly desirable. At the same time, institutional safeguards are needed to prevent national security policy from becoming a closed black box and to prevent defense officials from developing an inflated sense of their own authority or an excessively narrow worldview.

      If the Self-Defense Forces were ever to become unwilling to engage in open policy debate in the Parliament and with other government ministries simply to protect their institutional authority, Japan would risk repeating one of the fundamental failures of its prewar military system.

      .

      Public communication on national security has too often taken the form of lectures emphasizing citizens’ duty to defend the nation or apologetic explanations of Japan’s dependence on the United States. Such approaches rarely generate genuine public support.

      Instead, policymakers should encourage open, substantive public debate and create forums—including online platforms—where specialists and ordinary citizens can exchange views on national security issues.

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      III. Defense Policy in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

      .

      Artificial intelligence is transforming military operations at remarkable speed. Systems such as TITAN, developed by Palantir Technologies, integrate enormous quantities of information—including enemy targets, radar sites, friendly capabilities, logistics, and battlefield conditions—to generate operational recommendations. In some situations, AI may already be assuming functions that were once carried out by human battlefield commanders.

      .

      This trend presents Japan with several important challenges.

      Beyond Japan’s still-underdeveloped intelligence collection capabilities, the Self-Defense Forces simply do not possess the vast inventory and diversity of weapons available to the U.S. military.

      Japan will therefore need to develop its own operational concepts for employing drones and artificial intelligence rather than simply copying American doctrine.

      Ironically, however, the more distinctive Japan’s AI-based operational methods become, the more difficult close operational integration with U.S. forces during wartime could become.

      .

      Artificial intelligence is spreading rapidly throughout the U.S. military, and technological progress is occurring at extraordinary speed. Japan’s current procurement and budgeting system—characterized by long development cycles and rigid planning—cannot keep pace with such rapid innovation.

      Japan should therefore establish a flexible budget category that allows defense authorities to experiment with and acquire emerging AI technologies more quickly.

      Such flexibility, however, must never become an excuse for reducing transparency. Any new discretionary funding mechanism should be accompanied by robust oversight and meaningful auditing to ensure democratic accountability.

    1. Can AI Navigate the Chaotic Middle East with Theory Alone?

      Akio KAWATO

      Recently, “collaborating with AI” has become something of a trend. I decided to try it myself, using ChatGPT as a discussion partner to explore a question that has been bothering me: Is today’s tangled Middle East even something that can be meaningfully forecast?

      .

      This in fact is a question about methodology in international relations.

      Japan’s leading political scientist, the late Professor Takashi INOGUCHI, with whom I was fortunate to be friends, used to study scientific approaches to international relations at MIT. Yet he once told me something rather unexpected:

      “International relations isn’t really a science. It’s an art—a craftsman’s art.”

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      Interestingly enough, ChatGPT ended up saying almost exactly the same thing.

      .

      My question:

      Good morning.

      I’ve been thinking about how we should analyze the future of the Middle East—or, more broadly, whether international relations can ever become a genuine science.

      In the Middle East alone, there are countless actors: Israel, Iran, the Gulf states, the United States, Turkey, and many others. External powers may intervene at any moment, each pursuing its own agenda.

      .

      That alone makes forecasting difficult. But an even greater problem is that none of these players can really be treated as a single unit.

      Israel, Iran, and even the United States are internally divided. Governments, militaries, intelligence agencies, religious groups, business interests, political factions, and public opinion constantly compete with one another. What is more, those internal relationships are fluid and continually changing.

      Suppose we could somehow reproduce all of this inside a computer simulation. Do you think it could ever produce a single scenario and conclude, “This is the only outcome that can happen”?

      Or would it inevitably end up saying, rather like generating a huge decision tree, “There are countless possible patterns like the QR codes”? What do you think?

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      ChatGPT

      (Thinking time: one second. Compared with questions that require searching through historical material, the answer came almost instantly.)

      Good morning. I think you’re largely right.

      It is extremely difficult—perhaps impossible—for a computer to produce a single inevitable future.

      The fundamental reason is that states are not billiard balls, single and solid.

      .

      Israel, Iran, and the United States are not unitary actors. Each contains competing militaries, intelligence services, religious movements, domestic politics, public opinion, bureaucratic interests, and the possibility of unexpected decisions. The input variables themselves cannot be held constant.

      .

      That said, simulations are far from useless. Their value lies elsewhere. Rather than predicting one future, they help us identify which changing conditions create danger.

      .

      Take the Middle East.

      What happens if Israeli domestic politics becomes more hard-line?

      What if the Revolutionary Guard gains greater influence inside Iran?

      What if an American president becomes more willing to intervene because of election-year politics?

      What if Saudi Arabia abandons its current restraint?

      What if Hezbollah crosses a red line through simple miscalculation?

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      A simulation can test these switches and show where chains of escalation become likely. That is genuinely useful.

      Still, your conclusion is essentially correct. The result often becomes, “There are countless possible scenarios.”

      .

      Therefore, the real challenge for international relations is not generating more scenarios, but finding theories that prune the branches. For example, I would propose an approach as follows:

      Instead of asking, “What does each actor want?” I would ask, “What does each actor fear?”.

      .

      That, in my view, offers a better framework for understanding the Middle East.

      States are often driven more by fear than by ambition:

      Israel fears encirclement and surprise attack. Iran fears regime change and national humiliation. The Gulf states fear both regional war and abandonment by the United States. America fears being trapped in another endless conflict while losing credibility.

      .

      Once you understand this structure of fear, many seemingly endless possibilities become much easier to narrow down.

      .

      So my conclusion would be this:

      A computer alone cannot produce one correct answer.

      Combined with human historical judgment, however, it can identify the dangerous turning points.

      What we need for analyzing the Middle East is not a model that predicts the future with certainty, but a model that traces the interaction of fear and miscalculation.

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      Author

      That’s remarkably well put.

      I’m going to publish this conversation in my newsletter exactly as it is. At this rate, you’ll soon be appearing on television as an avatar.

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      ChatGPT

      Thank you.

      Please feel free to use it.

      As for appearing on television, the hardest thing to predict may not be the Middle East—but which necktie my avatar should wear.

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      Author

      Excellent sense of humor. I’ll include that in the newsletter as well.

      Even the human experts will struggle to keep their heads above water.

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      ChatGPT

      I’m honored.

      Jokes aside, I do think human experts in international politics are facing an increasingly difficult task. During the Cold War, analysts could often rely on relatively stable assumptions: “The Soviet Union is likely to think this way.” or “The United States will probably respond that way.”

      Today’s world is very different. States themselves are internally fragmented. Public opinion shifts almost instantly through social media. Individual leaders matter more than before. Non-state actors—including corporations, AI companies, militias, and religious organizations—have become increasingly influential. Drones and AI now allow relatively small players to shape major events. Traditional state-versus-state analysis is no longer sufficient.

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      Questions like “What is this leader afraid of?”, “What is this society angry about?” and “Which political faction has suddenly fallen silent?”, deeply human factors, are regaining their importance. And this means that the old skills of diplomats and historians are becoming valuable again. In other words, the more powerful computers become, the more analysis returns to something resembling the human observations of Anton Chekhov or Leo Tolstoy.

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      AI should endeavour to be able to deal with this.

    2. How Japan Realized Economic Development 1: The Myth of the “Japanese Model”

      （Until the rise of South Korea and, later, China, Japan’s economic development was a major focus of attention for developing countries and former socialist nations seeking economic reform. This was because Japan was the only non-white country to have achieved industrialization.
      Although Japan’s economy is not currently attracting much global attention, there will likely come a time when interest returns. In preparation for that time, I would like to discuss the realities of Japan’s economy in a series of articles. In this installment, I will argue that the term “Japanese Model” is a mirage.）

      .

      The Myth of the “Japanese Model”

      　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Akio KAWATO

      Stereotypical views on the nature of Japan’s economy are many. A common belief is that Japan somehow leaped overnight from a backward feudal society into an economic superpower after World War II. Others explain the so-called “Japanese economic miracle” by claiming that Japanese workers blindly obeyed their companies and the government. Still others imagine that the Japanese state controlled the economy almost as tightly as the Soviet Union.

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      Japan was the first non-Western nation to achieve large-scale industrial success. Before the World War II, it competed with the European colonial powers, and after the war its exports flooded world markets, dealing painful blows to many Western industries. Not surprisingly, Japan became both admired and distrusted.

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      Many people in the West have argued that Japan’s success was due to unfair competition resulting from low wages or the country’s underdeveloped society, which led companies to be subservient to the government and workers to be obedient to their employers.

      From such point of view, Japan’s present economic stagnation is simply the inevitable result. A backward society, they argue, eventually failed to adapt to globalization.

      .

      Reality, however, is far more complicated.

      Japan did not suddenly emerge from centuries of darkness. One could even argue that Japan was destined to become a developed nation. In the Middle Ages, Japan was already part of the East Asian trading system centered on China. It was said to be one of the world’s largest exporter of gold and the world’s largest importer of sugar.

      .

      Historians still debate why Japan adopted its policy of national isolation in the seventeenth century. Whatever the reasons, the result was that Japan learned to produce almost everything domestically. Internal commerce expanded rapidly. Although the country remained feudal in form, it had already developed something resembling a unified national market.

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      Urban culture flourished in Edo and Osaka. When major events occurred, special news sheets were printed and sold on the streets. Many ordinary families sent their children to terakoya schools, where they learned reading, writing, and arithmetic. These schools taught Confucian ethics, the dignity of honest work inter alia.

      One influential thinker was Ishida Baigan, whose philosophy blended Shinto, Buddhism, and Confucianism. His teachings remind us in many ways of the Protestant work ethic in Europe. He argued that a person’s place in society is justified only through honesty and diligent work. That belief remains deeply rooted in Japanese society even today.

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      Japanese craftsmanship was probably among the finest in the world. Gardening also reached remarkable levels. Contemporary accounts describe Edo as a city almost buried in greenery—something like an ecological city centuries before the term existed.

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      If a samurai killed a commoner without good reason, public opinion often condemned the act. This surprisingly egalitarian spirit can be seen in the comic stories of rakugo and in the writings of Ihara Saikaku.

      .

      What people now call the “Japanese model” was not created overnight. It gradually evolved after the Meiji Restoration. Nor was it designed by a single visionary leader, as some people in the West or Russia seem to imagine.

      .

      In less than seventy years before World War II, Japan had built a modern heavy industrial base, became an urban society, and created a large middle class. Anyone who watches Japanese films from the 1930s can see this quite clearly. Many foreigners assume that modern Japan only appeared after the war, as if it had magically transformed itself from feudalism into capitalism. In reality, Japan had already become a modern society before 1945.

      .

      Perhaps that is why the war itself felt, for many ordinary Japanese, like a natural disaster. It suddenly burst into peaceful homes, took away fathers and sons, and sent them to die in distant places few had ever heard of.

      .

      When the war finally ended, people felt they had become free again. They worked with extraordinary determination—not because they blindly obeyed their bosses, but because they wanted to rebuild the lives they had lost.

      Japanese employees do not work hard because they worship their companies. They work because if the company succeeds, their wages rise, bonuses increase, and their families enjoy a better life. There is another reason as well. Someone who does not do his share soon loses the respect of colleagues—and eventually his own self-respect.

      .

      Ingredients of the “Japanese model“

      Much has been written about the so-called “Japanese model” that supposedly collapsed under globalization. Yet no one has ever agreed on exactly what that model is.

      When foreigners discuss it—often critically—they usually mean lifetime employment, seniority-based promotion, family-like relationships inside companies, decision-making by consensus after extensive informal consultation, the ringi approval system, and supposedly strict government guidance of the economy.

      .

      Lifetime employment and seniority-based promotion became firmly established around the time of World War II. But lifetime employment has never been uniquely Japanese. Even in Japan, fewer than half of all workers ever enjoyed that level of security.

      People everywhere prefer to know what their future will look like. For that reason, even in the United States, companies such as IBM and many large banks traditionally offered careers that, in practice, were very close to lifetime employment.

      .

      Why, then, have Westerners and Russians often viewed Japan’s lifetime employment system with suspicion? Probably because they believe it has made Japanese society bureaucratic, stagnant, and excessively obedient to corporations.

      It is true that Japanese tend to behave very politely toward their superiors. Foreign visitors often see only that. What they usually miss is that once a meeting begins, discussions inside Japanese companies can become surprisingly frank and lively (there are exceptions, though).

      .

      To say that Japan’s economic miracle was created solely by the “Japanese model” is an exaggeration. After the war, the real driving forces were the explosive growth of domestic demand and a favorable international economy.

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      If one element truly deserves the label “Japanese model,” it is probably Japan’s well-developed financial and credit system. Most of the other features—such as lifetime employment and seniority-based promotion—were not the causes of rapid growth but its consequences. Only prosperous companies can afford to maintain such expensive employment practices.

      .

      Finally, regarding the Japanese government’s industrial policy: There certainly was an industrial policy. However, it was not a Soviet-style planned economy. While the government did set goals and support companies through loans from government-affiliated financial institutions and tax incentives, the fundamental mechanism was that large private banks channeled public deposits into corporate loans, and competition among private companies generated dynamism.

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      This differs from modern-day China, where excessive production is achieved through massive government subsidies.

    3. In Japan innovations occur within companies rather than by loners

      Japan’s public broadcaster NHK airs a program called Project X. Each episode tells the story of people who joined forces to develop a new technology or build something remarkable—a massive dam, the QR Code, a lunar exploration robot (tiny ones), and many others. One of the pleasures of the program is that the people who actually did the work return ten or twenty years later to look back on what they accomplished.

      .

      Watching these stories, I often find myself thinking how misleading the usual stereotypes about the Japanese really are. We are often described as lacking originality or as being too group-oriented. Yet the people featured on the program are anything but ordinary conformists. Time after time, they show remarkable creativity, perseverance, honesty, and dedication. Sometimes I cannot help wondering whether Japan simply has a larger share of such people than many other countries.

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      There is, however, one striking characteristic. Almost all of these innovators worked inside large corporations. They were essentially entrusted with what might be called “startups within established companies.” This is quite different from the Silicon Valley model—at least the popular image of it—in which independent entrepreneurs come together, form an ad hoc team, develop a product, sell the company, and then move on to create another one. (In reality, Silicon Valley today is probably much more complicated than that old myth.)

      .

      But perhaps Japan’s way is perfectly valid in its own right. People often say that Japan has too few startups. That is true if one counts only independent new companies. Yet Japan has long had another model: the in-house venture. Large corporations remain strong, and lifetime employment has traditionally provided the foundation. Income tends to be more evenly distributed, but for people who want a stable life over the long term, that may be a worthwhile trade-off. (To be fair, genuinely independent startups have also become much more common in recent years.)

      .

      Another thing that stands out is the kind of innovation these stories involve. Almost all of them concern “engineering”, that is something built with their hands and minds. We Japanese love craftsmanship, patiently refining and perfecting technology until it reaches an extraordinary level. The QR Code may seem like something that could have been invented with brainpower alone, but it appears that relentless improvement, persistence, and sheer determination were just as important in turning it into a global success.

    4. The Hollowing Out of American Pop Music

      　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Akio KAWATO

      Lately, pop music in many advanced countries seems increasingly mechanical, standardized, and overly technological. It feels very different from the American pop music of the late 1960s—artists such as Simon & Garfunkel, Joni Mitchell, and Carole King—or from Japan’s City Pop scene of the 1980s, represented by artists such as Eiichi Ohtaki, Minako Yoshida, and Taeko Ohnuki.

      The dreams, romance, and effortless sophistication that once characterized popular music seem largely absent today. Perhaps this reflects a broader reality: advanced societies themselves have lost some of their sense of purpose and possibility. There is a feeling that people no longer know where they are heading.

      .

      Recently, however, I came across a Japanese singer-songwriter who struck me as genuinely original: Kaneko Ayano.

      Born in Yokohama in 1993 and a graduate of Wako University, she comes across as an ordinary young woman who built her career from the ground up through live performances and songwriting.

      The album I listened to was Shukusai (Festival, CD: WRCA-18).

      With a young woman’s voice, she sings about the everyday realities of contemporary life.

      .

      The message is something like this:

      “My place in the world is modest. I will probably never be rich or extraordinarily happy. Yet I am content with what I have. I know that everything is fleeting, but even so, my life and my love matter to me”.

      That is the feeling her songs convey.

      .

      There is a touch of resignation in her singing, but also warmth. Her melodies are remarkably original. Let me quote a few lines from one song, Jet Coaster. They are even more moving when heard as part of the song.

      .

      A trapeze in the air

      Bathed in the light of the setting sun

      We remain forever innocent and carefree

      Unable to forget

      The eyes of a child

      Who sat beside me

      As night falls

      The stars are nowhere to be seen

      But if you understand me

      Then this city isn’t such a bad place

      I want to reach out

      I want to reach out and touch

      Wanting to know someone

      Isn’t such a strange thing, is it?

      Even though I already know that…

    5. Beyond the Anthropocene: Toward the Age of AI

      (I originally wrote this in December 2024, but I suspect the basic situation has not changed much since then.)

      Will ChatGPT Surpass Human Intelligence? — An Interview with ChatGPT

      While finishing the manuscript of my book In Search of the Lost Modernity, I relied quite a bit on ChatGPT.

      For example, I asked its opinion about one of the arguments in the book: that the Vikings were not nearly as barbaric as they are often portrayed, and in some respects possessed advanced technology for their time. Would such a view be regarded by the academic world as completely eccentric, or was it within the bounds of serious scholarship?

      ChatGPT quickly surveyed a vast range of sources and, in about twenty seconds, produced a remarkably comprehensive answer.

      So I complimented it.

      .

      “Thank you. That was extremely helpful. Your ability to gather facts from many different fields and organize them into meaningful concepts is impressive. Will you eventually be able to discover unknown laws and principles of the universe? Or will you always depend on humans to collect the facts for you?“

      .

      ChatGPT immediately began typing.

      “Thank you for your kind words. Your question touches on the deep relationship between knowledge, creativity, and discovery.

      Let me explain both the potential and the limitations of my abilities.

      1. Conceptualization

      My ability to conceptualize is based on recognizing patterns, integrating information, and identifying relationships among established facts.

      This allows me to offer new perspectives and frameworks for understanding complex subjects.

      By organizing known facts in novel ways, I can sometimes highlight overlooked connections or generate new hypotheses. Interdisciplinary similarities and unexpected correlations may emerge through this process.

      (I must admit, this capability is genuinely impressive.)

      .

      2. Discovering Unknown Principles

      I cannot directly “discover” unknown laws of the universe in the way that experimental science does. However, I can contribute to discovery in several ways.

      Hypothesis Generation:
      I can suggest ideas and theoretical models that researchers may later test empirically.

      .

      Interdisciplinary Insights:
      By combining knowledge from different fields, I can identify similarities or mechanisms that may inspire entirely new areas of research.

      .

      Data Analysis Support:
      When provided with raw data, I can help detect patterns or anomalies that may point toward underlying principles.

      (This, of course, is where computers excel.)

      However, genuine discovery ultimately requires experimentation and interaction with the physical world. That lies beyond the scope of my computational framework.

      (This is the crucial point. A generative AI without hands, eyes, or instruments cannot perform experiments. But if one day AI acquires such capabilities, it may begin acting much like humans—or perhaps even surpass them.)

      .

      3. The Limits of Human Knowledge

      My training depends on the body of knowledge accumulated by humanity up to a certain point.

      In other words, I cannot know what has never been observed, studied, or theorized.

      My insights depend on the richness and breadth of the data available to me. If the relevant patterns are absent from that data, I may fail to detect them.

      (This may be the most important point of all.)

      That said, my framework of pattern recognition and reasoning reflects certain aspects of human thought and allows me to make inferences and predictions within the boundaries of existing knowledge.

      .

      4. Expanding Human Understanding

      The interaction between AI and human creativity offers enormous potential for advancing knowledge.

      .

      Collaborative Exploration:
      I can help humans refine questions, identify gaps in understanding, and explore possibilities more rapidly than before.

      .

      Enhancing Human Creativity:
      While I am constrained by existing data, human intuition and curiosity can venture beyond known facts. Working together, we may uncover principles that remain hidden today.

      (Another fascinating observation. One wonders whether intuition and curiosity themselves could someday be engineered into AI.)

      .

      Accelerating Research:
      By organizing, analyzing, and synthesizing complex information, I can significantly shorten the time required to reach major discoveries.

      .

      5. Possible Paths Toward Discovery

      Areas where my capabilities may help reveal unknown principles include:

      Mathematics:
      Suggesting patterns or symmetries in unsolved mathematical problems.

      Physics and Cosmology:
      Exploring alternative explanations for unresolved phenomena such as dark matter or aspects of quantum mechanics.

      Biological Systems:
      Generating hypotheses about emerging properties in genetics, ecosystems, and other complex living systems.

      .

      In Closing

      Although my conceptual abilities are ultimately based on knowledge collected by humans, I can contribute to discovery by offering new perspectives, generating hypotheses, and organizing insights in ways that encourage further exploration.

      The true frontier lies in collaboration—using AI to amplify human creativity and empirical inquiry.

      Together, we may push the boundaries of the unknown even further.”

      .

      That concluded the “interview.”

      ChatGPT assesses its own capabilities quite accurately. It does not claim that it will surpass humanity.

      Yet its ability to sift through enormous quantities of information, organize facts instantly, and assign meaning to them already exceeds human capabilities by a considerable margin.

      AI will probably surpass human intelligence sooner than many people expect.

      We humans like to flatter ourselves by speaking of the “Anthropocene,” the Age of Man. But history may be heading rapidly toward something else entirely: the Singularity—the Age of AI.

    6. A Sunshade for the Planet

      　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　.Akio KAWATO

      Summer is coming again, and with it the heat. After years of record-breaking temperatures, even COP—the annual United Nations climate conference—seems to be losing its sense of direction. The more desperately the world tries to cut CO₂ emissions, the more the thermometer appears to mock us by climbing ever higher.

      .

      As a result, some rather creative ideas are being proposed. One of them, described in detail by The Economist on November 25, 2023, would involve releasing two million tons of sulfur into the stratosphere every year. The particles would scatter sunlight and create the effect of a giant parasol high above the Earth. The problem, of course, is the cost—and the possibility of unpleasant side effects for the environment. There are also dreams of machines that would suck CO₂ directly out of the atmosphere, but so far they remain mostly dreams.

      .

      So I would like to suggest a more straightforward solution.

      Why not place an actual parasol between the Earth and the Sun?

      When viewed from Earth, the Sun looks surprisingly small. Surely it cannot be beyond modern technology to park a sunshade of roughly that apparent size somewhere far out in space. Its position could be adjusted by AI. The parasol itself would, naturally, be manufactured in Japan.

      Am I missing something here?

      Or have I just solved global warming?

    7. Will U.S.–North Korea Relations Start Moving Again? And What Should Japan Do?

      .　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Akio KAWATO

      On the 14th, almost at the same moment that President Trump announced a ceasefire agreement with Iran, he posted on social media an old photograph of himself standing beside Kim Jong Un.

      Perhaps he was sending a message: “Iran is done. North Korea is next.”

      .

      It is not a bad idea. If the historical grievances and accumulated mistrust can be eased, and if the coexistence of North and South Korea can be legally formalized, lasting stability on the Korean Peninsula may no longer be a distant dream. There remain difficult issues, of course—not least North Korea’s nuclear weapons and, for Japan, the unresolved abductions of Japanese citizens.

      With that possibility in mind, it may be useful to review how we arrived at the current situation.

      .

      During the Korean War, North Korean forces advanced with remarkable speed after hostilities began in June 1950. The tide turned dramatically, however, when United Nations forces landed at Incheon in September. Once UN troops crossed the 38th Parallel, China—which had previously hesitated to intervene—succumbed to pressure from Stalin and sent its “People’s Volunteers” into Korea in November 1950. They pushed the UN forces back.

      .

      A prolonged stalemate followed. By June 1951, the Soviet Union was already proposing ceasefire negotiations.

      At that point, however, Mao Zedong—who had fiercely resisted Stalin’s earlier requests for Chinese intervention—became the principal obstacle to a ceasefire. He had apparently realized that military successes in Korea could strengthen his political position at home. Only after Stalin’s death in March 1953 did Mao finally agree to end the fighting.

      .

      In July 1953, an armistice agreement was signed at Panmunjom between North Korean and Chinese military commanders on one side and the United Nations Command on the other. No peace treaty followed. As a result, what was intended as a temporary ceasefire has now lasted more than seventy years.

      .

      South Korean President Syngman Rhee, who remained committed to reunifying Korea by force, refused to sign the armistice. In fact, the armistice was signed by military commanders rather than political leaders. Mao himself did not sign it, either. On the other hand Kim Il Sung did, in his capacity as commander of North Korean forces.

      In theory, therefore, North and South Korea remain in a state of war. Only a formal peace treaty can provide a lasting foundation for stability on the peninsula.

      .

      Interestingly, North Korea’s newly revised constitution, revealed in May, not only removed references to the “reunification of the fatherland” but also explicitly defined the border with South Korea. This could be interpreted as preparation for an eventual peace treaty.

      .

      Kim Jong Un and Japan

      Japanese journalist Taeko Ishii has pieced together a rather melodramatic account of the childhood of Kim Jong Un and his sister Kim Yo Jong.

      Because their mother was not Kim Jong Il’s official wife, the two grew up largely in the shadows. They were sent to school in Switzerland as children. According to Ishii’s account, however, the aunt who cared for them there—and her children—eventually defected from Switzerland to the United States. The young Kim siblings then abandoned their studies and returned to North Korea. One can only imagine the psychological scars such experiences may have left behind.

      .

      At the same time, the brother and sister do not appear to harbor any particular resentment toward Japan. There have been several reports that Kim Jong Un visited Japan with his Japanese-born mother while still a boy and became fascinated with Tokyo Disneyland.

      Perhaps this is only my impression, but the Kim siblings seem noticeably less inclined to direct personal insults at Japanese leaders than they are toward leaders in South Korea or the United States.

      .

      Could Japan help North Korea overcome its excessive fear of the United States and take a step into the world of the twenty-first century—assuming, of course, that the issues of nuclear weapons and the abductions are first addressed?

      .

      At the same time, if President Trump decides to revive negotiations with North Korea, Japan should work to ensure that South Korea does not end up paying a disproportionate price for any agreement. That will require close coordination between Prime Minister Takaichi and President Trump.

    8. Why Are Environmental Activists So Quiet in This Heat?

      It’s been scorching hot day after day. People say that if you fall on the pavement, you can suffer serious burns from the heat of the asphalt. Even the cicadas seem to have disappeared. These days, their larvae may be cooked underground before they ever emerge, and summer arrives with hardly a chirp.

      .

      Come to think of it, it’s not just the cicadas that have gone quiet. The anti-CO₂ campaigners seem unusually silent as well. Perhaps COVID stole their spotlight. Or perhaps global warming has accelerated so rapidly that many have concluded it is already too late for CO₂ regulations to make much difference.

      .

      Anyway, environmental issues have never been purely scientific debates. They have also involved competition for university positions, television appearances, speaking engagements, and various forms of influence. To preserve their dominance, advocates of the “CO₂-is-the-culprit” theory often worked aggressively to silence anyone who suggested that climate change might have causes other than carbon dioxide..

      It reminds me of the way rival branches of Christianity in earlier centuries fought less over faith than over church property and tax revenues.

      .

      Those who engaged in such tactics now bear a responsibility to speak up. By focusing the world’s attention almost exclusively on CO₂, they may have delayed the adoption of other measures that could have more effectively helped societies adapt to climate change.

      .

      Throughout Earth’s history, temperatures have risen and fallen repeatedly. In Japan, for example, sea levels around 10,000 years ago were roughly five meters higher than they are today, implying warmer temperatures as well—perhaps one or two degrees Celsius higher on average. If carbon dioxide alone were responsible for rising temperatures, then atmospheric CO₂ concentrations would have had to decline dramatically afterward.

      .

      The CO₂-centered view may also reflect a certain European belief that humanity can reshape nature itself. Yet major climatic shifts can occur simply because Earth’s axis tilts slightly or because solar activity changes. A one-degree change in Earth’s tilt, or a modest increase in sunspot activity, can have significant climatic consequences.

      .

      What we are experiencing today may be less “global warming” than a growing climatic instability. Summers are becoming hotter, yet winters in many places have also become harsher. That suggests that the underlying causes may lie not only on Earth but perhaps in the Sun as well.

      .

      For example, since 2020 the number of sunspots has been rising steadily, indicating increased solar activity. Sunspot activity is known to fluctuate in roughly eleven-year cycles.

      .

      I support the spread of electric vehicles and see no problem with expanding carbon-emissions trading. But climate policy cannot rely solely on reducing CO₂ emissions.

      We should also encourage technologies that convert heat into usable energy, improve cooling systems, assist those who cannot afford air conditioning, develop inexpensive insulation methods for buildings, and expand irrigation projects in regions increasingly threatened by desertification. Climate adaptation must be approached from a global perspective.

      .

      Looking back at Earth’s climatic history, every warming period has eventually come to an end. It is not that the Sun is now suddenly expanding toward the end of its life, nor has Earth’s axial tilt dramatically increased. This period of warming, too, is likely to have its limits.

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