Message from the President November.2019

IFA (Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin), the international consumer electronics fair held from September 6 to September 11, 2019, seems to have been a big success, featuring the booths of 2,000 companies from around the world and more than 245,000 participants. IFA is a world-leading trade fair for consumer electronics along with CES® held in Las Vegas, the United States, every January. Japan became the first global innovation partner country this time and opened the Japan Pavilion with 20 Japanese start-ups. IFA has become a valuable opportunity for people in Europe to become familiar with innovations in Japan.

It is said that smart consumer electronics are more evolved in Europe than Japan. The event symbolized the fact the “connected” was already commonplace for consumer electronics from European makers, and the fact that AI had been becoming a natural existence as an interface of consumer electronics for people in Europe.

It is believed that in the near future, AI will be integrated into not only consumer electronics but our daily lives, and the world is expected to be a place where everything is automatic. While machine learning and deep learning are listed as the current features, AI will not expand its learning of its own will, even though it will become wiser through self-study in a designated area within a given range. However, there is a possibility that AI with almost human intelligence, extensive knowledge and some sort of self-consciousness will be achieved in the future. At the question of whether humans can control AI will be important.

For example, society already faces a number of moral dilemmas, but as AI evolves, we will also have the urgent task of addressing the moral dilemma of AI in the same way we deal with those for humans. In manufacturing, there is a basic design concept called a fail-safe, through which a failure or a malfunction are led in a safe direction based on the premise that they will inevitably occur at some point. However, a moral dilemma is not a malfunction—it is a problem that will arise when AI decides it is right. Therefore, unless we incorporate a monitoring control system from a new perspective, we will not be able to prevent accidents.

If engineers like you look toward the future smart society, begin with an understanding of the overall picture of how different systems and mechanisms are designed and constructed. This is because all consumer electronics, houses, cars and towns will be connected and inseparable from smart use. Let’s create unique value, which only we can generate, for new issues that will arise in the smart society. The world of AI is right around the corner.