- Written by Mariko Oi
- business reporter
A declining population means that Japan is running out of workers. Many people hope that artificial intelligence (AI) will fill that gap.
In a country known for its pursuit of perfection, damaged or misshapen fruits and vegetables are difficult to sell.
And if you are a specialty Japanese gyoza manufacturer like Osaka Ohsho, you absolutely cannot sell a pack of gyoza that has some damage.
But as demand surged during the pandemic, parent company Eat & Holdings didn't have enough people to test all the dumplings or keep up with demand.
So we turned to technology for an answer. In January 2023, it opened a high-tech factory equipped with AI-powered cameras trained to detect defective dumplings on the production line.
The facility currently produces two dumplings every second. This is twice the speed of other Osaka Osho production bases.
“By introducing AI, we were able to reduce the number of people on the production line by nearly 30%,” said Keiko Handa, a spokeswoman.
The company recently introduced an AI-powered cooking robot called Irobo at one of its restaurants in Tokyo. The company says this technology will help solve the labor shortage problem, as it takes time to train chefs.
Japan's labor shortage is likely to worsen further.
The current population of 124.35 million has been decreasing for 13 years. And Japan's labor force is expected to continue shrinking by 12% from 2022 to 2040, with an estimated shortage of 11 million workers by then.
Meanwhile, Asia's second-largest economy is already home to the world's oldest population, with 29% of the population aged 65 or older.
The country also has one of the lowest birth rates in the world, with just 758,631 babies born last year. This is the lowest number since records began in the 19th century.
Government efforts to raise birth rates have had little success. In the words of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, our country is “on the brink of being unable to function.”
Since AI has taken over the world, many have wondered if it will take our jobs away. But for some in Japan, AI can't come fast enough.
Agriculture is one of the fastest aging industries in Japan, with the average age of Japanese farmers currently 68.4 years old. Here, AI is used to identify different types of diseases, pests, and weeds for early detection and prevention.
Nippon Nohyaku, which manufactures agricultural chemicals, has developed a smartphone app called “Nichino AI.'' When a farmer takes a photo of a crop that is struggling, the app diagnoses what the problem is and what pesticides are needed.
“The accuracy rate is about 70 to 80 percent, so it's not as good as a real expert, but it's better than the average farmer,'' says Kentaro Taniguchi of Nihon Nohyaku.
“The longer you work with this app, the more you realize how good the human experts are,” he explains. “But the number of experts is decreasing, so that's where AI tools can help.”
Kensuke Takahashi, a farmer who has been using the app for three years, agrees that AI is one of the tools that can help modernize the sector. “The number of farmers is declining like a roller coaster, but the total amount of agricultural products in Japan is increasing,” he says.
Takahashi acknowledges that some older farmers are skeptical of new technologies such as AI, but believes that AI is contributing to improved efficiency levels. “Once you try spraying pesticides with a drone, you can't go back to manual spraying,” he laughs.
What about a field that constantly faces shortages: language teachers?
Despite repeated efforts by the government to increase the number of people who speak English, Japan's English proficiency has consistently ranked at the bottom due to a lack of teachers who can speak English effectively.
To overcome this shortfall, a startup called Ecumenopolis has developed an AI-powered online tool that allows users to have English conversations with avatars for 15 minutes per session. So far, it has been introduced in 50 schools nationwide.
Late last year, Narita International High School in the Tokyo suburbs had students practice at home for three months.
“The AI determines what kind of English conversation each student is capable of and changes the questions,” teacher Shoko Takiguchi told the BBC. “It was difficult to have one-on-one conversations with all the students, so that was an advantage.”
At the end of each conversation, students receive feedback on six areas including pronunciation, grammar, fluency, and vocabulary.
“It was efficient because I could easily find my weaknesses using AI,” said Ko Hanyuan, one of the students. But when asked if he would choose AI over tutorials online, he says no. why? It lacks humanity.
Takiguchi agrees, saying, “It's useful for improving speaking skills, but I felt that the conversations were unnatural.'' She added that AI cannot assess a user's reactions, physical condition, or changes in tone.
So why not replace a human teacher? Katsutoshi Fukumizu, the school's principal, emphasizes, “AI cannot and should not replace English lessons taught by schools and teachers.''
The Japanese government is also experimenting with AI.
Yokosuka City, Kanagawa Prefecture, which is suffering from a labor shortage, has started using an AI chatbot called ChatGPT to support administrative tasks such as transcription and summarization of meetings.
Kohei Ota, a city public relations officer, said, “There is a huge amount of documents to handle, and it takes a lot of time and effort to prepare them.''
Thanks to ChatGPT, “post-trial calculations suggest that we will save 22,700 hours of work per year,” he added.
The National Digital Agency, which was established in 2021 to overcome administrative inefficiencies, is also using AI to train its staff.
“There are so many things we want to do, but we can't keep up with the manpower,'' says Masanori Kusunoki of the agency. He added that the government is working to “look at how AI can be leveraged and disseminate that information to the private sector.”
But Kusunoki doesn't think the rise of AI will reduce the need for workers.
In a country where change happens slowly, Japan has embraced the power of AI with less resistance than other countries.
That's because for more than a decade, we've been considering all sorts of solutions to tackle the double whammy of an aging and declining population, from robots to women to older people to foreign workers.
While AI may help improve workforce efficiency, it is far from replacing human workers.