KAZE, July 2019
Let's not rely on technologies alone!
Konoe FUJIMURA
Nowadays in Japan, social conditions are getting worse and worse making
people worry about their future life especially when extreme weather events causedby climate change frequently happening in various parts of the country. Furthermore,terrible crimes have been increasing these days, which makes us realize how difficult
it is to maintain a sustainable and environmentally friendly society while protecting
the dignity of people.
Amid such confusion, Abe Cabinet cannot show us what type of country
Japan will become in the future. It is provoking our anger to see that politicians are
just discussing ad hoc measures to win the election and will not at all discuss thevery bases of politics, namely to what direction they are leading this country. It iseven strange that people seem to accept the short-sightedness of this cabinet.
I wrote in the above that the current cabinet averts the discussion of Japan's
future, but to be precise, the cabinet approved the "investment strategy for thefuture" in June 2017, featuring a futuristic concept of Society 5.0 (meaning the 5th
new society following Hunting, Agriculture, Industry, and Information societies)
making full use of IoT and AI. The cabinet also approved "Japan's Long-term
Strategy under the Paris Agreement" on 11 June 2019. As you see, these two
strategies center around the economy and technologies, indicating that the current
cabinet prioritizes the economy to the environment and business/technologies tothe life/dignity of each person. Formerly, the economy and technologies wereconsidered a way to realize welfare or social sustainability. However, as the economyand technologies have been powered with authorities in the past few decades, they
became a cause of further disruption of society.
Historically, technologies were expected to expand industries andeconomies, and eventually change/improve our society. The first industrial
revolution was incurred by the invention of a steam power engine, pushing up theUK to the factory of the world. In the second industrial revolution starting in the late

1800s, electricity and petroleum brought about mass production. They also
mainstreamed heavy industries which made the US and Germany as major world
powers. Personal computers appeared in the latter half of the 1900s are said to havetriggered the third industrial revolution, transforming various aspects of our lives.
Likewise, it is believed that the fourth industrial revolution with AI and IoT willchange the industrial structure and our lives dramatically.
Many Japanese including those in the current government seem to believethat AI and IoT will make us happy and help us develop a rich society in the future.
However, it is just an illusion. I even worry that AI will take place of human labor andwill lower the integrative capacity of human beings, or will widen the information
gap or educational inequity as well as economic disparities, and eventually increasesocial instability.
Asahi Newspaper dated 6 June 2019 reported that Robert J. Gordon, an
American economist, said that any innovative invention today will not bring about adramatic rise of productivity and that AI will not change the business styles orincrease productivity as electricity and gasoline engines did in the past. Susumu
Tonegawa, a Nobel laureate, said that there are a lot of useless or harmful
technologies. We can lead a good life without them, but human beings make every
effort to produce "things" using all available technologies and energy, and end up inpollutions. He also said that a human mind is necessary for the wise use oftechnologies; what policy we hold and how to control technologies is a key forhuman beings to survive on the earth. The famous Mahatma Gandhi even pointed
out that science without humanity is a deadly sin.
The first industrial revolution in the UK resulted in pollutions and low wages,
which caused the expansion of colonial policies. Until today, those environmental
degradations and economic gaps have been continuing and are becoming evenmore serious. Then why people excessively rely on technologies when it is becoming
clearer that they will not make us happy or make society sustainable.
I can understand that new technologies excite our intellectual curiosity, andthere is nothing wrong about it. These days, however, new technologies areintroduced to our society without discussing/examining if they are really good anduseful for our well-being. They are introduced just because they provide political oreconomic merits to authorities or business activities. Should we accept suchtechnologies as having negative impacts (nuclear power generation, linear motorcars, weapons, etc.) on society, rather than benefit?
It may be time for us to face the fact that a substantial amount of taxpayers'
money has been invested in new technologies (including those trendy climatechange countermeasures as CCS or CCUS) without being reviewed if they areeffective and necessary. It is only those interested parties that will be befitted fromthose new technologies. We have to realize that those conventional idea and ways of
doing things mentioned above are depriving futures of children. Now we have toshow our courage to change such old ways of doing things.
Here, let's remember the words of Greta;"You only speak of green eternal economic growth because you are too scared ofbeing unpopular. You only talk about moving forward with the same bad ideas that
got us into this mess, even when the only sensible thing to do is pull theemergency brake.","Our civilization is being sacrificed for the opportunity of a very small number ofpeople to continue making enormous amounts of money."