Imagine 10 to 20 years from now. Japan is heading straight for a shrinking population at a rate of more than 700,000 people per year. With the decline in the working-age population, expectations and needs for foreigners to participate in and contribute to Japanese society will increase. As is already the case, domestic globalization of employment will steadily progress.

On the other hand, collaboration with developing AI and generative AI and digital transformation will advance work efficiency. Robots will also be active in every corner of society, and productivity will improve in all work. “ICT” and “IoT” will become obsolete. Existing jobs will also change. Some jobs will disappear, and new jobs will be created. The spread of e-commerce will change the cityscape.

The decline in the working-age population, which is beginning to be called the country’s population loss, and domestic globalization, as well as digital transformation, AI, and robotization: the arrival of a future that is difficult to even imagine. It is now important for junior and senior high school students to look to the future, face the changes in society, and think about how they want to live and what and how they want to learn.

I would like to explain why this is important from two perspectives.
The first is to prepare for the decline in Japan’s working-age population and domestic globalization. Even as digital transformation and robotization progress, the internationalization of human resources and workers will accelerate in fields where there is a labor shortage. The Japanese government has been trying to gradually and peacefully advance internationalization.
The trend began with the “Plan to Accept 300,000 International Students” in 2008. In 2019, when the number of international students exceeded 300,000, the Immigration Control Act (Immigration Management Act) was revised to make it easier for those who have completed their studies to find domestic employment as “core human resources” who can immediately put their work into practice. In 2023, the Immigration Control Act regarding “highly skilled foreign human resources” was also revised, making it practically possible to allow indefinite stay in Japan with family members. With the abolition of the Technical Intern Training Program in 2024, “Specified Skills 1 and 2” were created. There is no upper limit on the period of stay for 2, and family members are now allowed to accompany the students.
In 2024, a goal of “400,000” was set for accepting international students. In a government announcement in February 2025, the government plans to invite 270 outstanding people from India, which has a large number of science and technology talent, in 2025 (each person will receive 3 million yen per year), with the aim of improving Japan’s research capabilities and industrial competitiveness.

The most recent amendment to the Immigration Control Act is the “Foreign Entrepreneurial Activity Promotion Project” that will take effect on January 1, 2025. It has been implemented nationwide. “Startup visas” have begun to be issued to foreigners who aim to start businesses in Japan. They are now allowed to stay for two years to prepare funds, business locations, etc. Legal amendments based on the expectations of foreigners and policies based on them have been calmly implemented.

The second point is that our children will live in a future where DX and AI have penetrated and robotization has progressed far beyond our current state. It is possible that the efficiency and rationalization brought about by DX, generative AI, and robots will weaken the diversity that was previously taken for granted as a result of human power. The adverse effects of generative AI on learning have already begun to be discussed, but when considering the education of children who will move into a society surrounded by generative AI, it is important to foster “autonomy.”

The word “autonomy” has become a catchphrase in the new teaching guidelines, so much so that it has become a familiar word. However, “autonomy” is by no means a word that superficially describes the characteristics of an attitude or posture. In recent years, when generative AI has begun to be used in pursuit of high efficiency and rationality in work, “autonomy” is an important point that has clearly emerged in contrast.

In his 2013 paper “The Future of Employment,” Dr. Michael Osborne of Oxford University argued that “about 50% of jobs (employment) in the United States will be replaced by AI,” and was interviewed by the Asahi Shimbun and the Nihon Keizai Shimbun 1 in 2023, 10 years later. In the paper, he spoke about AI intelligence and human intelligence. Roughly speaking,
–Currently, and for the time being, AI intelligence is able to answer questions by picking up relationships with the real world from large amounts of data, and is good at compiling certain elements and facts from large amounts of data. On the other hand, humans cannot absorb large amounts of information and knowledge like AI can, but in real life, humans are trained to learn and predict answers from things that are not directly related to the issue at hand. Humans acquire what is known as “tacit knowledge.” “Tacit knowledge” is a technique that AI, which finds answers by tracing certain relationships from large amounts of data, does not possess. The power of this “tacit knowledge” is what gives humans an advantage. “Tasks that cannot be replaced by AI will remain as human jobs.” “When it comes to creativity and social intelligence, humans will maintain their superiority for the time being.”

In addition, Dr. Satoshi Kurihara, professor at Keio University’s Faculty of Science and Technology and president of the Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence, describes the differences between AI and humans in his book “AI Can’t Do It.” It goes roughly as follows:

The main role and use of generative AI, represented by Chat GPT, is “overwhelming efficiency.” AI or generative AI should be proactively tasked with the parts and tasks that humans are weak at. However, the efficiency achieved by generative AI is not the creation of something new, nor is it a process for moving forward. Generative AI is extremely useful as a tool to support human creative work, but current generative AI does not have the “autonomy” of humans, who “try things even though we don’t know what will happen.” Since it lacks autonomy and cannot make decisions and act on its own, it cannot demonstrate creativity. AI contributes to humans’ work of “creating new things,” but it does not “create new things” by itself. ―――

Now, the “autonomy” that Dr. Kurihara talks about, “I don’t know what will happen, but I’ll try it,” is about making decisions and acting on your own, since “law” literally means deciding something and acting on it… so what does the decision-making in that action depend on, what is it based on? We can assume that this is deeply connected to Dr. Osborn’s “tacit knowledge” quoted earlier.
We make some kind of autonomous judgment or decision from our past experiences and learning, and from various newly acquired information. We can feel from experience in our daily lives that decisions about actions are often influenced by tacit knowledge to make autonomous judgments. This also leads to creativity.
The difference between AI and human intelligence is clear from the arguments of these two expert doctors. And what they have in common deeply is that the human power required in a future society where answers from AI and generative AI are swirling everywhere is the power to demonstrate what AI and generative AI cannot do. It is the power that humans can create something new from. It is the power to create, the power to innovate.
For the future society, there is a risk that individuality and uniqueness will be lost if we rely solely on the answers of AI and generative AI that anyone can access. What is important is the creativity and ability to innovate based on the answers. This is autonomy. It is not the answer itself that generative AI instantly brings out, but the ability to use the answer in the future. For children who will live in the future, it will be even more important to guide them to the power of “tacit knowledge” and the power of “autonomy” to freely and carefreely demonstrate their individuality from various learning and activities.

How do we nurture the seeds of the power that will be necessary for the society 10 or 20 years from now when junior and senior high school students will be active in society? After 70 years since its founding, Mutsuura Junior and Senior High School, in its 12th year of reform, will once again boost the reform of education. However, the underlying philosophy of education and learning is to nurture people who deeply understand “love for one’s neighbor” and create peace. Stand on unchanging truths and develop the ability to respond to changes. “Connect learning to society, connect learning to the future.” We will strive for education that connects to the future.

Principal Katsuo Kurohata
(Assumed office in 2014, concurrently serving as principal of Kanto Gakuin Mutsuura Elementary School from 2022)