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Dialogue with Stakeholders Achieving JSR's Sustainability: Considering Work Styles of the Future (2)

Future work styles in a progressing "digital society"

Considering the roles of AI and people in the future

Quite honestly, no one knows how people will be working in 2025 and 2030. Nonetheless, I think daring to think about what isn't known and which doesn't seem to have an answer is one of the abilities that people will need in the future. Conversely, I think that patterned work in which answers are drawn out quickly, for example, is something at which AI excels.
Suemasa:
My department's work is in R&D and the creation of new inventions, so I don't think it will be replaced by AI. For us, the question will be how to make such creative work more efficient. For example, I believe the aggregation of data and knowledge and the expansion of person-to-person links will become important.
Yuasa:
I agree. The R&D activity of existing businesses can probably be made more and more efficient with AI. But if we're starting a new business, no practicall data exist, so AI cannot provide best performance. Indeed, I think humans must think about such areas where answers are not readily available.
Sawada:
Right now, a lot of work is going into gathering data to advance AI's application. However, this work will be eliminated in the future as IT advances. As routine tasks are eliminated on the one hand, data will continue to expand. Therefore, people will likely need skills in arranging and distinguishing that data and, further, creativity in determining how the data will be used.
AI runs on programs and data that are provided to it by human beings. However, in the field of neuroscience, the mechanisms of the brain are being understood biologically, and the generation of AI based on speculation on how the brain may react to interpersonal services is already beginning. Perhaps there will be new innovation in the design of data points.
Additionally, AI has the ability to randomly extract various forms of information, which is something people are not very good at. I sense that this will produce seeds for innovation. I feel that new creativity will be needed for determining how people will handle the seeds that AI produces.

What people will need as they learn to coexist with AI

Nomura:
Dialogue with StakeholdersAI is writing articles on financial statement announcements for the Nikkei online edition. This and other developments show that AI is beginning to appear in fields that no one thought possible just a few years ago. Some years ago, a study by Oxford University created a stir when it concluded that 49% of Japan's jobs could be replaced by artificial intelligence and robots. I don't think we need to accept this figure at face value. However, the report stated that "creativity" and "cooperation" will be needed for the jobs that cannot be replaced by AI and that only people can do. The word "cooperation" can be replaced with "social intelligence." I believe that we will need to polish this ability in the years ahead.
One point mentioned as necessary for accepting future uncertainty is "adaptability." The human brain has evolved to produce a negative emotional reaction to unseen phenomena as a means of protection from danger. That's why it's so hard for us to accept new things. On the other hand, we can process information on things we are familiar with efficiently. This is because when we use the same neural circuits in the same way repeatedly, the neurons there develop and information is transmitted with just a small electric impulse. It is for this reason that people tend to choose things they are familiar with. We also know that men and women grasp environmental changes differently. I think that, first of all, we must consider things based on recognition of the nature and diversity of human beings.
Inomata:
I think that's right. I think we will increasingly need communication skills in the future. If we look at tools for communication, first email appeared and then LINE* arrived. At first, I thought, "I don't need LINE." But when I started using it, I found it to be quite handy. New and different communication tools will probably appear, so I think we must have the ability to adapt to those new tools.

* LINE is a communication app that was released in June 2011. It is reportedly used by more than 217 million people worldwide. Among its features are one-on-one and group chat functions and free calling.

I think that as we hand over to AI more and more tasks that can be entrusted to it, people will become more human. What I mean is, we will act more with feeling, say emotion or a sense of unity. Even when viewed in terms of the brain, although we understand that each of the systems of theory and emotion operate in completely different parts of the brain, we largely see the significant degree to which emotional factors affect people's decision-making. Right now, we are often told "Don't get emotional" in the workplace. But I think that, conversely, it is possible that emotions will come to be valued.
Yamaguchi:
Undoubtedly, there are many ways in which we move with emotion. Indeed, feelings of frustration can be a major driving force for people.
It seems to me that great value remains in human beings' efforts to process information that is difficult to arrange into a pattern and non-linguistic information within the brain. For example, there is the feeling of "strangeness" that we experience from time to time. You feel that something is odd, but you can't put it into words. This comes from the part of the brain called the anterior cingulate cortex. I think its ability to produce this feeling is a very important capability. Normally, if you say to your boss, "Something is odd here," your boss will immediately reply, "OK, explain why." But I think the time will come when this feeling will have importance precisely because there is no reason why.
Sawada:
Certainly, unexpected malfunctions can occur at manufacturing sites, perhaps due to gradually aging equipment, but sometimes the people there sense that something is wrong before it happens.
Suemasa:
Even in research, there are times when an experiment fails for an unknown reason, and we use AI to analyze its causes. But because AI makes its evaluation based on data supplied by human beings, it of course reaches the same conclusions. We then consider what to do next using clues gleaned from people's sense of strangeness and awareness.
It's not just a feeling of strangeness. If we sense that "something about this is interesting" or "this may go well," that feeling can lead to innovation. Isn't that the feeling that Steve Jobs and Kazuo Inamori* were so exceptional at grasping?

* Kazuo Inamori:
A distinguished Japanese businessman and corporate manager. He is the founder of Kyocera Corporation.

Kamiya:
It is said that even academic researchers benefit from the hope of encountering serendipity in their research. What becomes necessary for researchers and developers is foresight, or thinking about things that seemingly have no answer. I think the question of how well engineers can refine this will become more and more important in the future.

Failure brings forward progress.

Failure is also very important. Mistakes happen, and because they do, we can make new discoveries from them. This is also one of the values that people bring. If we view failures in a negative light only, we will learn nothing and be left with nothing more than a bad feeling. That's why in our company we hold weekly presentations to learn by finding ways to laugh about our failures.
Yuasa:
In fact, until a great success is achieved, more than 90% of the trial and error data results in failure. However, thanks to the lots of failures, remarkable improvements are made and eventually the innovation occurs. Even in my own experience, it sometimes happens that an unintended failure actually turned out new discoveries. Therefore, what humans will need to do going forward might be to fail or to take on challenges freely without constraints.
I think that to do this, it is important to have education that changes the way we look at failure, beginning particularly at a very young age. One of my favorite phrases is "An activity that stops at failure becomes a failure. If you continue until you succeed, the activity will become a success." It adds that "A person who can see his failure as a good lesson is a person who will grow later." Even when viewed from a scientific perspective, this conforms with the principle of rewriting emotions. If you fail, it is important to find ways to view that failure positively.
Nomura:
The company must have a culture that accepts failure. Having the ability to learn from failure is also very important in career development.
Yamaguchi:
Looking at the importance of failure, in one area, ten-thousand prototypes are made but only twenty are accepted. What this means is that 9,980 failures are allowed. In recent years we have been hearing the phrase "fail fast," but JSR has had such a culture for a long time. No one knows what will happen when something becomes a project or business. Those of us in management must convey this to our employees.
Dialogue with Stakeholders

Go to Part 2 "Current HR Management Challenges"