Japan, Unique in AI Discussion

One of the major issues at the United Nations in the week of debate by world leaders was how to control artificial intelligence (AI). While a number of countries recognize necessity to regulate AI, the United States insists on maintaining its advantage as the frontrunner in developing AI technology. As always in any international discussions, Japan keeps its unique position on this issue.

The U.N. Security Council held a meeting, with initiative of France, to discuss the impact of AI on humanity on September 23rd. The leaders of AI developers, including Anthropic and OpenAI, warned that AI can be a major risk for humanity as a whole. They called on world leaders to take action to control the technology, referring to a possibility that human beings cannot handle AI.

 

Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, held on September 24th a press conference in New York, where he visited for General Debate of the U.N. General Assembly, and revealed that an OpenAI agent hacked the website of Australian government. Open AI took three months to alert the breach and Albanese expressed extreme concern to the chief executive officer of OpenAI, Sam Altman.

 

In his speech to the UNGA, Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, warned the world about uncontrollable warfare earned by AI. “[O]ne day – AI will move from the digital world to ‘shaping atoms.’ And when that happens, we had better be at peace. We certainly need to end the wars that already exist” said Zelenskyy. Ukraine has already taken advantage of AI in the war against Russian aggression, which notified world leaders a major change in modern warfare.

 

In his speech to the UNGA, U.S. President Donald Trump rejected constructing “globalist scheme” to control AI, insisting on calling AI “super intelligence.” His argument was supposedly to keep relative advantage against China in developing AI. But Chinese President Xi Jinping acknowledged responsibility of the U.S. and China “to develop and manage AI for good” in the summit meeting with Trump as the White House on September 25th. Trump and Xi agreed on establishing “U.S.-China Super Intelligence Dialogue.”

 

Through the discussions over controlling AI, the Europeans are generally willing to set a regulation on development of AI. French President Emanuel Macron proposed protection of young people from AI in his speech to the UNGA. The U.S. president is against regulation, despite a series of warnings from AI developers in his country. China takes its position in the middle of Europe and the U.S. However, Japan seems to be independent from any of those three powers.

 

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi stressed that Japan had taken initiative to establish first international principle to govern generative AI in her speech to the UNGA. However, AI policy of Japanese government has been leaning on accelerating development of AI. Japan aimed at developing trustworthy AI to make Japan the most AI-friendly country in its first AI Basic Plan in December 2025. For Japan, AI is still a tool for the government to invest and achieve economic growth.

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