Interviewer

My first question is about AI advancements. I mean, the performance of Mythos, truly shocked the world, and we are also seeing rapid advancements in generative AI, not only from the US but also from China. In Japan too, I use Sakana Fugu.

Oh, really?

So how do you view those recent breakthroughs in AI, and what kind of impact do you think they will have on business and society? That's my first question.

Well, I wonder if you are optimistic about the future of AI, but at the same time many people are pessimistic. I mean, it has a lot of risks—AI would destroy, disrupt the world in the future, because they will evolve, like, AGI. Cinematic. So how do you respond to such a pessimistic idea?

Right.

Oh, really?

Assistive.

So technology, including AI, helps people communicate in many other ways as well.

Excuse me, what kind of eyewear do you actually use? Is that from Meta, or what kind? You said you use eyewear.

Subtitles, yeah, that was—

Right, it's different from Google Glass.

Right, like a Dragon Ball counter.

My next question is about cyber security, or AI's role as part of that. Recently major Japanese companies have been attacked—I mean, maybe from cyber terrorists, like our famous brewery company was cyber-attacked and could not make beer for a long time. So because of AI, cyberattacks are becoming more and more advanced, could be more harmful recently. So what do you think of cyberattacks driven by AI?

Okay, so maybe we can overcome such AI attacks, because to protect against such attacks we could use AI as well. But I think company CEOs should be more careful about such cyberattacks, because Japanese companies have a tendency to continue the traditional model and don't care about new technologies very much. So what is necessary for management to cope with such cyberattacks?

I see, thank you. And you worked for Taiwan and the government, and I felt that you're very good at getting people to use more digital new technologies. But I feel it's not always easy to persuade older people especially—many people are using very traditional tools and traditional ways of thinking. What are the advantages of digital technologies you'd tell Taiwanese people? If they use this technology, is our life, our communication, our decision-making far better than before? What is the key to persuading people to use more digital technologies to make the world better?

Okay, well, my next question is a little different. Recently Palantir CEO Alex Karp published a book called The Technological Republic , and in the book he insists that technology companies should support government more than before. My understanding is that, traditionally, tech companies think in a more libertarian way, counter to that. But recently I think there's a different movement—not only Karp, but Peter Thiel, who is chairman of Palantir, has a similar view. I think they're discussing that if you don't support the US government—that kind of position—maybe China has great AI technology, and Chinese AI would become the more advanced one.

Yes, yes, that's it. So what do you think of recent movements like this?

Never a race.

Yeah.

Space mission.

Yeah, I think, as you mentioned, the future could be more idealistic—it could be great if we can use our technologies—

Yeah, but I feel there are a lot of difficulties, because China-kind and Russia-kind governments use AI to control people, maybe in the military area as well—and of course the United States and its allies do the same thing. AI is so powerful that the United States attacked Venezuela in January and used AI, Palantir technology. So AI could make war more dangerous than before, and we cannot stop that—that's my view, because if you look back at long history, governments want to use new technologies to win wars. So my point is, how—

Oh yeah, you just said "governments." But we're in Japan—

But somebody would attack, like the Ukraine case—

I see, that's a good point. Is there actually that kind of movement? I think the key is collaboration, cooperation among countries focusing on defense rather than attacking.

And I'd like to ask you about Anthropic, or Dario Amodei's constitutional AI. In the context I mentioned before, many governments are asking top AI companies to help with their military power, but Amodei says "constitutional AI" and focuses on that policy. So what do you think of that—is that very important for AI companies?

2019?

Well, my next question is a little about democracy. People are depending on AI so heavily and constantly—

Yeah, they ask AI everything, and many think less these days. If you look back at the long history of human beings, everybody used to think and then decide what to do. But AI tells you what's good, what's bad, and what you should do. So it's a kind of dangerous situation—if you talk about democracy, people should think for themselves and decide who to vote for. That kind of intelligence is necessary for everybody, but because of AI, people are becoming, maybe, synchronous these days. What do you think of that? What should we do to overcome that kind of difficulty?

I'm not sure, but—

Maybe they ask AI—I mean, you understand me very much, so maybe you can tell me who is the ideal person to vote for.

Super search engine?

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay. Yeah, so what I'd like to explain was that people should think more, because if they depend on AI so much, being synchronous could be dangerous—they don't know what is good or what is bad, so AI just says so, and that's what I do. AI is a kind of genius, so all we have to do is follow that advice. So I think that kind of world is very dangerous.

You should warn people to avoid that kind of situation. What should we do? What kind of education is necessary—maybe liberal arts kind, like a Greek philosopher asking "what is light, what is justice"—what kind of education is necessary for people?

Okay, thank you. And actually, my next question is your view on employment. Many people say AI takes jobs from human beings—yeah, it's been repeated so many times, but many people ask that question. But recently, because of AI agents and Mythos, especially consulting companies and maybe bankers go away—many people mention that. So what do you think about AI and employment?

Yeah.

I want to start by talking to you about your childhood. Let's go right back to the beginning. How did that shape who you are today?

That's an extraordinary response for a child, and it must have been frightening for you to grow up in that shadow.

And you must have acquired quite a strong sense of discipline. I mean, I can't imagine saying to my child, "try not to get too happy or too sad."

And so your tools during this time really were reading philosophy and the Internet, and the odd floppy disk.

Do you still consider yourself to be philosophical?

I want to come back to that in a few moments. But first, let's keep up with your life story here because you were involved in a protest movement in 2014, and that led to you working with the government in Taiwan. That's quite an extraordinary journey in itself.

Did you expect it to work?

Did you start out thinking this was going to be an act of rebellion, or did you always intend to shape your country legitimately?

Did you? And you connected everything?

And so from that moment, you started working with the government and you helped to introduce a lot of changes that dramatically improved the approval ratings of the government. This is in the sort of five years leading up to the pandemic. Tell me about some of those initiatives, things like vTaiwan.

So, a massive difference.

And you went on to become Taiwan's first Digital Minister, didn't you?