The Yomiuri Shimbun
Toshikazu Yamaguchi, left, president of The Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings, attends a panel discussion session titled “Industry as a Driver of Social Change” at the 1st Kyoto Conference in Kyoto on Tuesday.
1:00 JST, September 25, 2025
Academic researchers and business leaders discussed what values will be like in the era of artificial intelligence, in panel discussion sessions at the Inaugural Kyoto Conference in Kyoto on Tuesday.
Organized by the Kyoto Institute of Philosophy, the main theme of the conference is “Toward the Realization of a Multilayered Society of Values.” Participants discussed how to find new values in the AI era from various perspectives.
In a panel discussion session on Tuesday titled “Industry as a Driver of Social Change,” Prof. Takahiro Nakajima of the University of Tokyo, who is a philosopher, and The Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings President Toshikazu Yamaguchi were among the speakers.
About the values of companies in the AI era, Nakajima said, “Companies’ role is to benefit from altruism. In other words, benefit without hurting any others. We should provide knowledge so AI causes no harm.”
Yamaguchi said: “Trust is highly important for newspaper companies. We have to consider relationships between humans, not binary confrontations, as a premise. By doing so, we will get closer to a good society.”
At another panel discussion on “AI and the Question of The Human,” Katsuhiko Hibino, president of Tokyo University of the Arts, said “Humans have an ability to accept things with the attitude, ‘We can leave unattended what we don’t understand.’”
“Remaining unconvinced by answers that AI puts out is human nature,” he continued.
Hiroshi Ishiguro, a distinguished professor at the University of Osaka who is known for his study of androids, said: “One human value is curiosity, which AI does not have. By using AI, it may become possible to cultivate and expand humans’ curiosity and capabilities.”
Managers of foreign media also participated in the conference. At another session, Robert Thomson, chief executive officer of News Corp of the United States, mentioned the fact that AI programs have used news articles without permission.
“I think that’s important for all Japanese companies — that IP [intellectual property] is protected and … the source shouldn’t be a synonym for theft,” Thomson said.
He praised a recent legal action taken by The Yomiuri Shimbun and others over unauthorized use of their articles by search engines using generative AI programs.
The Yomiuri and other plaintiffs filed a damages lawsuit against a U.S. AI company, and are also demanding that the company stop the unauthorized use of articles.
AloJapan.com