Kishida pledges to support AI development in next economic package

The prime minister said the government will earmark funds to also facilitate the incorporation of AI in small and midsize companies and in medical and other fields.

Present subscriptions for the use of LLM Generative AI tools are not steep.

Why must the government further give corporate welfare to business from a struggling tax base?

The answer of course is 'AI' is another poorly understood trend the LDP is using to justify corporate welfare socialism for the rich.

earmark funds to also facilitate the incorporation of AI in small and midsize companies

Why don't those companies "facilitate" AI on their own instead of relying on the govt and public money? If they are incapable of doing so, then they aren't competitive and thus shouldn't be supported.

Just another subsidy program for anything that mentioned AI.

Why don't those companies "facilitate" AI on their own instead of relying on the govt and public money? If they are incapable of doing so, then they aren't competitive and thus shouldn't be supported.

Yes, how dare the government provide assistance to companies to make Japanese companies stronger on the world stage, right? The government trying to do things for its people is absolutely ridiculous, right?

how dare the government provide assistance to companies to make Japanese companies stronger on the world stage

Except it is not being done 'for the people's and never is.

It is from a one party establishment that has a proven record of regressive taxation, returning few benefits to the public, of wealth transfers to crony interests, that hoard profits and productivity gains without raising wages and also have shown ignorance and mishandling of tech issues.

The suspicion is very, very justified.

@dagon That is correct!

Except it is not being done 'for the people's and never is.

Umm, are you under some silly idea that small and medium business are owned by the government or something?

It is from a one party establishment that has a proven record of regressive taxation, returning few benefits to the public, of wealth transfers to crony interests, that hoard profits and productivity gains without raising wages and also have shown ignorance and mishandling of tech issues.

This investment in small and medium businesses proves your statement wrong.

Umm, are you under some silly idea that small and medium business are owned by the government or something?

The silly idea is that corporate welfare comes with no strings attached and such welfare is almost exclusively directed towards business interests instead of the put upon working public.

To top it off the tech initiatives by the LDP have been proven to be very poorly implemented and have scant returns on investment.

Except maybe for the "small and medium business", receiving monies from the public treasury with no requirements to pass on gain to workers.

The silly idea is that corporate welfare comes with no strings attached and such welfare is almost exclusively directed towards business interests instead of the put upon working public.

And who do you think owns small and medium sized businesses? And who do you think employs the public?

The answers to those questions kinda make your post fall apart, don't they.

Except maybe for the "small and medium business", receiving monies from the public treasury with no requirements to pass on gain to workers.

Um, the money isn't earmarked to be passed on to the employees, or to go into the employer's pockets either. Let's try to stick within the facts of what is actually happening, mmmkay?

Um, the money isn't earmarked to be passed on to the employees, or to go into the employer's pockets either. Let's try to stick within the facts of what is actually happening, mmmkay?

If you support trickle down socialism for the rich then okay.

While the laboring public endures inflationary pressures on stagnant wages with Abenomics corporate tax cuts shifting the tax burden onto workers, lets take form the public treasury to subsidize businesses that have hoarded profits.

To create productivity gains that again will not be passed onto workers.

To possibly subsidize automation that will put people out of work.

All so "small and medium business", can have their Chat GPT 4 subscription and training for staff paid by the public instead of out of their fat pockets.

I think the LDP/Japan Inc. Combine likes how you think.

If you support trickle down socialism for the rich then okay.

Small and medium business owners are the rich? Mmmkay...

I'm a small business owner in Japan, and I assure you, I am not one of the rich. I am very comfortable, but the rich are a different class.

This is the government helping Japanese businesses remain competitive in the face of a changing world. This is exactly how the government should be helping businesses and therefore Japan.

While the laboring public endures inflationary pressures on stagnant wages with Abenomics corporate tax cuts shifting the tax burden onto workers, lets take form the public treasury to subsidize businesses that have hoarded profits.

Small and medium business have hoarded profits? What are you even on about?

Small and medium business have hoarded profits? What are you even on about?

https://jp.reuters.com/article/japan-stocks-buybacks/cash-hoarding-japanese-firms-please-investors-as-share-buybacks-hit-record-idUKL3N20941K

Given it is about large firms, but many small and medium businesses are subsidiaries of mega corps.

Individual cases may vary.

In this case transfers from the public treasury from workers to the capital holding are a bad idea as a rule, get my drift?

they are replacing the human by AI without our consent. they call it democracy...

https://jp.reuters.com/article/japan-stocks-buybacks/cash-hoarding-japanese-firms-please-investors-as-share-buybacks-hit-record-idUKL3N20941K

Um, how does an article talking about large corporations relate to small and medium businesses? Was there something in that article that was supposed to support your point or something?

Given it is about large firms

Oh my bad, so you knew it was irrelevant.

many small and medium businesses are subsidiaries of mega corps.

And the overwhelming majority aren't.

In this case transfers from the public treasury from workers to the capital holding are a bad idea as a rule, get my drift?

Because you say so? Do you not realize how society and government work or something?

Because you say so? Do you not realize how society and government work or something?

In this case I do and it is corrupt and wasteful, pretty par for the course for the LDP.

IMHO AI alignment and integration is one of the most important questions of the time, and the LDP is going the lazy crony capitalist route as usual.

The prime minister said the government will earmark funds to also facilitate the incorporation of AI in small and midsize companies and in medical and other fields.

As per JP government usual they are confusing robots with AI.

As per JP government usual they are confusing robots with AI.

How are you determining this? I'm not saying you're wrong (or right), but I'm not seeing what brought you to this conclusion.

BTW, AI is already developed. There's not so much left to be fine-tuned or tweaked. Spare the money better for other and more promising technologies.

BTW, AI is already developed. There's not so much left to be fine-tuned or tweaked.

No. It's not even true AI right now, it's just predictive AI. Still a long way to go before they come up with a true AI.

Spare the money better for other and more promising technologies.

It's literally the most promising technology out there right now.

Don't see what Japan can contribute to development.

Haven't seen very good engineers in this country. It would take a radical change in the education system and entrepreneurial system.

The prime minister said the government will earmark funds to also facilitate the incorporation of AI in small and midsize companies and in medical and other fields.

If there were a way to transfer funds seamlessly from taxpayer to small businesses etc then that would be one thing. It could still be argued over whether it is a legitimate use of taxpayers' money. But, it will likely involve a whole new branch of bureaucracy to disburse these funds and likely reams of paperwork and an ill-conceived application process, the processing of which nonetheless justifies the existence of this new bureaucracy. What proportion of the earmarked funds will actually reach the businesses and what proportion will simply keep a new branch of (perhaps just retired) bureaucrats afloat?

It is self evident these elected representatives to handle systems on our behave are incapable and/or incompetent.

Fair play to Kishida for embracing AI, people complain about old tech in Japan but this is a step in the right direction. SME’s are usually milked by outsourcing their IT requirements hence government assistance is great.

To everyone complaining here about governmental support - this is done in order to avoid the situation occurring now in the US where only the extremely privileged very few have access to such technologies. Nowadays if you're not Google Microsoft or OpenAI you have absolutely no chance to every monetize AI - it takes at least 10 million dollars to train a neutral network model to a particular task.

So the government is helping those unable to access such resources.

You don't like your taxes used like this? Nobody forces you to live here - lead, follow, or get out of the way, baby!

It's not even true AI right now, it's just predictive AI. Still a long way to go before they come up with a true AI

What is true AI? Are you talking about a general artificial intelligence?

Artificial intelligence is a wide field - machine learning, deep learning, robotics, neural networks, natural language processing, genetic algorithms...it goes on. What's 'just predictive AI?' Chatgpt or Midjourney aren't, they are both generative AI. Predictive AI is a different type.

What is true AI?

AI that can think and come up with new thoughts.

Are you talking about a general artificial intelligence?

No, I'm talking about true AI.

True artificial intelligence is autonomous — it does not require human maintenance and works for you silently in the background. AI is as much a part of the fabric of a system as the other tools and technologies (features, dashboards, campaign blueprints, etc.) inside of the platform. These systems will learn on their own through data experiencing as opposed to human programming.

https://emarsys.com/learn/blog/real-ai/

By a wide definition of AI, my company has created multiple algorithms that can be considered AI. But none of them are true AI.

Why don't those companies "facilitate" AI on their own instead of relying on the govt and public money?

I would bet they would, but central government has a habit of jumping in these trends saying “me too” as they pretend that they, and not private enterprise, are the leaders of the economy.

If the government comes along and offers other people’s money, there are very few with the moral fortitude to say no, and we all know that most everyone has their snouts of the trough. (Furusato nozei…)

Until collectively the voters vote for an end to such frittering away of public money it’s going to continue, sadly.

AI that can think and come up with new thoughts.

A false metric and by that indicator AI already exists (an idea I think is premature).

Alpha Go already developed novel strategies 1000s of years of Go players had never imagined.

https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2017.22858

The level of knowledge of the field of Generative LLM among the LDP and those that defend it's crony capitalist schemes does not inspire confidence.

There is a misunderstanding between "Artificial Intelligence" and "Advanced Intelligence" . Some day I am sure there will only be the former, but until that day comes, we are really using the latter.

Nice discussion so far. Anyway, in fact they have to hurry up. Any intelligence is soon on stake, natural and artificial, because soon everything is de-industrialized and falling into hands of global South. Needless to engage a predictive AI to know what then remains of all those attempts and achievements so far. Exactly nothing will remain.