“Japan, wake up!”: Masayoshi Son, CEO of Japanese new technology giant SoftBank Group, on Wednesday urged the country to resolutely adopt artificial intelligence (AI), without which it risks becoming a “fish red” in a jar.
“Our future will be determined by our rejection or our resolute adoption of AI”, we must choose between “grabbing it or staying behind, wanting to be a goldfish or not”, launched Mr. Son during an event organized by SoftBank Group in Tokyo and also broadcast online.
Because AI will make so much progress that in 20 years, its lead over human intelligence will be comparable to the gap separating a human from a goldfish, he said.
Mr. Son lamented the fact that many Japanese companies are still reluctant to use generative AI tools like the very popular American software ChatGPT, if they are not downright hostile to it.
“Japan, wake up!” he said again, estimating that the country’s economy had already lost three decades for having neglected the digital revolution.
This was Masayoshi Son’s first public speech since the mega-introduction on the New York Stock Exchange of Arm, a British subsidiary of SoftBank Group specializing in microprocessor architectures and which wishes to play a major role in the AI in the future.
But after a euphoric first trading session where Arm jumped 25%, its stock has since almost abandoned all its initial gains.
This operation nevertheless boosted the financial resources of SoftBank Group, which could take advantage of it to invest extensively in the artificial intelligence sector.
Its telecoms subsidiary in Japan SoftBank Corp is already partnering with OpenAI, the owner of ChatGPT, to offer generative AI solutions to businesses in the country.