Sanpo-yoshi Communication

President's Column] President BOT

Do you remember the "copy robot" from the cartoon "Perman" that you watched as a child?

With a flick of his red nose, he transforms into a robot that looks just like him, and takes over his school lessons and housekeeping. Meanwhile, Parman flies through the sky for peace. As a child, I too fantasized, "If only there was a robot like that, I could leave my homework to him and play with him all the time.

By the way, do you know why that robot's nose is red?

The design is said to have been created with the kindness of Fujiko F. Fujio, the author of the book, who wanted the switch to be easily recognizable.

Such childhood fantasies are now about to become reality.

Recently, I heard about a very interesting technology that is truly a modern-day copy robot. In her lecture, DeNA President Tomoko Namba said that she had created an AI alter ego of herself and let her employees feel free to consult with it.

When an employee has a problem, he/she can consult this "AI president" and he/she will give advice as if I were there. During recruitment interviews, students can interact with the "AI president" to get a deeper understanding of the company's culture and atmosphere.... Every day is a battle against time for small and medium-sized business owners. I want to talk with each employee more slowly. I want to visit my customers more often. But in reality, that is not always possible. In such situations, it would certainly be helpful if "I, the AI," were there to help you.

This technology may be especially significant when we consider that we may someday pass the company on to the next generation.

What we really want to entrust to our successors should not only be the company's assets and human resources. The passion we had when we founded the company, the things we learned from casual interactions with customers, the philosophy and wisdom born from the frustrations of failure.... But the more "invisible" these things are, the more difficult it is to convey them in words.

In this respect, "AI President" remembers all the words and sentences I have ever uttered, and even recreates the thoughts behind them. It may become a kind of "company lighthouse" that allows me to return to the spirit of the company's founding at any time. Using NotebookLM and other tools, it is already technically possible to create an AI chatbot that can read all the texts, presentation materials, and videos that you have sent out in the past, and understand all your thoughts.

However, as I think about it a lot, I suddenly have this question.

AI may be able to imitate my success patterns, but will it be able to reproduce even the major failures I made in the past and the "helplessly frustrated feelings" I had at those times? I wonder if AI can reproduce my past failures, including those times when, after severely scolding a subordinate, I remained alone in the president's office and wondered if I should have said things the way I did.

I feel that the history and culture of a company is actually filled with something important that is not sparkling or shiny, but rather is in the muddy parts of the company. Will the day ever come when AI can inherit the subtleties of human emotions that cannot be captured in data?

When Perman went home, he would attach his forehead to the copy robot's forehead and share what had happened while he was away. AI is about to make such a world a reality. I was thinking about such a future company landscape, remembering the copy robot I dreamed of as a child.