A.I.

A few months ago, major tech company OpenAI launched ChatGPT and it quickly became a viral chatbot tool. Since then, it has impressed everyone by creating original essays, short stories, instruction sets and even coding. Users can run it for free as long as they create a personal account. They can simply type their request, and ChatGPT will execute it for them.

You've probably heard that automation is becoming commonplace in more and more fields of human endeavor. You may also have heard that the last bastions of human exclusivity will probably be creativity and artistic judgment. Robots will be washing our windows long before they start creating masterpieces. Right?

I visited Rutgers University's Art and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, where Ahmed Elgammal's team has created artificial-intelligence software that generates beautiful, original paintings.

I found these examples of robotically generated art to be polished and appealing. But something kept nagging at me: What happens in a world where effort and scarcity are no longer part of the definition of art?

With the rise of A.I. and an endless sea of personal data available, some start to question, "How free are we?" Yes, it is true that A.I. will free us from many of the meaningless tasks that we are saddled with on a daily basis. However, there are serious concerns as to how our data is used for both positive and negative reasons.

We continue to see China using nearly every tool imaginable to monitor and control the lives of their citizens. Sesame Credit started just a few years ago but is now becoming mainstream in China. For those of you who are not familiar with the system, it is one where citizens are graded by their actions, things they buy, and other factors such as support of their government's policies. If you have a low credit score, you can be prevented from buying a house, sending your kids to private school, and other actions that restrict your freedom.

Employees' brain waves are reportedly being monitored in factories, state-owned enterprises, and the military across China.

The technology works by placing wireless sensors in employees' caps or hats which, combined with artificial intelligence algorithms, spot incidents of workplace rage, anxiety, or sadness.

The "emotional surveillance technology" helps employers identify mood shifts so they can change break times, an employee's task, or even send them home.

"When the system issues a warning, the manager asks the worker to take a day off or move to a less critical post. Some jobs require high concentration. There is no room for a mistake."

Another type of sensor, built by technology company Deayea, is reportedly used in the caps of train drivers on the high-speed rail line between Beijing and Shanghai. The sensor can even trigger an alarm if a driver falls asleep.

We are now experiencing the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), a period of rapid change driven by progress in science and technology. The main drivers of 4IR are AI, big data and the Internet of Things (IoT). Japan will play a leading role in global innovation with a new World Economic Forum (WEF) center devoted to maximizing the potential of the 4IR, says Klaus Schwab, WEF founder and executive chairman.

“Japan is not sufficiently recognized for its innovative capabilities,” Schwab said in a recent interview with Forbes Japan. “The world is speaking about what’s happening in Silicon Valley and Shenzhen, but it is not aware that Japan has created a very successful startup community.”

Amazon's smart assistant Alexa can now be made to encourage children to say: "Please," and: "Thank you," when they ask it something. The new function addresses some parents' concerns that use of the technology was teaching their offspring to sound officious or even rude.

The move has been welcomed by one of Alexa's critics. In January, the research company ChildWise published a report warning that youngsters that grew up accustomed to giving orders to Alexa might become aggressive when they have to interact with humans.

“This is a very positive development," research director Simon Leggett said. "We had noticed that practically none of the children that we had talked to said they ever used the words 'please' or 'thank you' when talking to their devices.”

In America, on a unanimous voice vote, a Senate committee approved legislation that authorizes self-driving car makers to sell as many as 80,000 vehicles a year within three years that would be exempt from current safety standards as manufacturers develop technology for autonomous vehicles.

The legislation only allows for the exemption—which gives car makers the chance to test and design new technology while potentially foregoing traditional standards for items such as the placement of controls and displays, rear-view mirrors or protection from the impact of steering wheels in a crash—in cases where manufacturers can show the exempted car or component is as safe as that already on the road.

 “This is cutting-edge technology that is advancing extremely fast,” said U.S. Sen. Gary Peters. “It’s going to happen a lot sooner than people realize. This is not decades—it’s a matter of a few years.”

In 2013, Volvo announced a potentially revolutionary approach to designing electric vehicles (EVs). It wanted to replace some of the steel body panels in its cars with carbon fiber composite materials that can store power like a battery.

The rechargeable panels would be composed of multiple layers of carbon fiber, which are insulated from each other by fiberglass inserts. The result is a structural component that can be charged like the battery.

Though this new design would reduce weight problems associated with rechargeable car batteries, it was not without its problems. In the event that the car crashes, emergency crews would essentially be trying to fish someone out of a giant damaged battery. The cost of carbon fiber was also quite high. Due to these issues, Volvo decided not to mass produce its new cars.

Major Japanese agricultural machinery makers are developing self-driving tractors. The government plans to support the introduction of these  tractors amid growing hopes that such machines will help farmers cope with labor shortages at a time when many are aging and face difficulties finding successors.

In June 2017, Kubota Corp. started selling the country’s first tractors with autonomous driving functions on a trial basis. Utilizing the Global Positioning System (GPS), the tractors can keep tabs on where they are operating.

As the machines still need to be monitored, Kubota assumes that farmers will operate two tractors at a time, one with a driver and the other unmanned. Having two tractors operate simultaneously in this way on farmland with an area of 3,000-5,000 sq. meters would reduce the work time by around 30 percent, according to Satoshi Iida, a senior managing executive officer of Kubota.