Artificial Intelligence Will Not Save Japan

It’s no secret that Japan is going through labor difficulties at a national level. From basic agriculture to Amazon deliveries, nearly every sector of the economy has had to make do with fewer workers. This goes for politicians as well, with some local jurisdictions reducing the number of electoral seats due to a lack of candidates.

Those who remain in the legislature have tried to come up with creative ways to deal with the shortage. During the Abe Administration, leaders had the bright idea of handing out lots of visas to foreign workers who could fill in the gaps. More recently, that vision has been turned completely around, with some political parties advocating an upper limit for issued visas as a first step in addressing the crisis. And the second step? Pull some youngsters out of college and tell them to get manual labor jobs instead (recently voiced by Jyonen Tsukasa in the September 2026 issue of Hanada), something I don’t necessarily disagree with. But the third step? Artificial Intelligence.

Of course, these leaders are not suggesting that ChatGPT run for a seat in the Diet. Instead, the power of AI would be brought to bear in all other workplaces. For number crunching and reporting tasks, businesses have used software solutions for decades, so throwing artificial intelligence into such environments is a no-brainer, no pun intended. AI is also making inroads in the elder care domain thanks to the availability of AI companions designed to offer emotional support to lonely seniors. It even turns out that someone is using machine learning to look for defective gyoza.

As a professional computer programmer, I know that software can do some amazing things. And I don’t doubt that those who look primarily to technology to solve Japan’s woes are well meaning. But there is an underlying error in this vision. At the extreme end is yet another Utopian vision of humans living in peace and prosperity while machines do all the work. Even when that worldview is tempered, it still communicates the false idea that we will be just fine with computers taking over essential tasks in the absence of skilled workers.

At some point, someone will build a robot that will make the rounds in a local nursing home in the morning before heading off to run its gyoza restaurant empire in the evening. Thanks to advances in language translation, you will be able to dump this senior-loving dumpling automaton in Canada or Cameroon and have it adjusted to local needs. It might be efficient, but will it be better? In such an environment, the question won’t be whether Japan would have its basic needs met, but instead whether it still means something to be Japanese.

The United States already has systems like this, though not specifically AI-driven. Rising labor costs and a relentless drive for efficiency have replaced local cuisine with a set of tasteless, factory-powered national restaurant chains. It’s still food, but nobody would mistake it for anything cultured or regional. Such hands-off mechanization also enables geographically larger contamination opportunities, such as the recent issue with lettuce in the Taco Bell fast food chain, an outbreak that reached fifteen American states and sickened more than 6,000 consumers.

I’m not a Luddite. I spend all day in front of a screen with no desire to go back to my Remmington typewriter. But the core of any society is its people. A country with no people is just a Wikipedia article about a lost culture. Humans are what make any nation meaningful, especially one as amazing as Japan. This includes foreign residents, who bring value not only through their labor, but also by just being present. All value in this world comes from humans, even the value of AI. Japan is living proof of this idea. Here is a country with minimal native resources and constant natural disasters. Yet somehow, it became one of the most influential and powerful nations in history. That “somehow” is its people.

AI will fill the vacuum left in some hollowed out industries. But it cannot answer the question pestering the dwindling number of Japanese politicians: What does it mean to be truly Japanese and how can that essence be saved in light of an aging, shrinking population? For that, the nation must look to its human population, including those who came from overseas with an inner excitement for Japan and its future, something that no artificial system can supply.

Image Credits: Ryutaro Tsukata/pexels