
Japan Seeks Tech Revival with Artificial Intelligence - nopinsight
http://www.wsj.com/articles/japan-seeks-tech-revival-with-artificial-intelligence-1448911981
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simonh
What goes around comes around.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_generation_computer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_generation_computer)

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lern_too_spel
Entirely unrelated. FGCS was a massive government-funded effort, and this is a
submarine article about a single startup.

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henry_vonfire
A different site with the same article and without asking you for a
subscription: [http://www.artificialintelligenceonline.com/3814/japan-
seeks...](http://www.artificialintelligenceonline.com/3814/japan-seeks-tech-
revival-with-artificial-intelligence/)

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EvanPlaice
To be competitive on the international scene they have some huge obstacles to
overcome.

The electronics manufacturing boom that happened after WWII wasn't
spontaneous. It happened due to a strategic partnership with the US and Japan.
Many Japanese were sent to US universities to be educated on Electrical
Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Computer Science. In addition, Japan
received a significant amount of funding from the US to bootstrap their
developing economy which later grew into a manufacturing powerhouse.

Currently. Japan is a developed nation at a peak of its manufacturing capacity
with a decreasing working population and increasing non-working population.

Aside from Macro Economic constraints, there are some very real cultural
barriers hurting their competitive standing on the international stage.

First, even with a population boom the only way to sustain current production
capacity is to open the borders to immigration. People outside Japan are very
interested in moving their to work/live but widespread xenophobia is still a
very real problem.

Second, the public perception that the Japanese work ethic is poisoned by too
much emphasis on perception over production.

I can't speak on the reality of living/working in Japan because I've never
been there but I have seen numerous videos and posts lately by western tech
workers who have. The popular consensus seems to be, "Japan is an amazing
place to be but I'd never stay there long-term."

From what I can tell, the culture encourages people to work extremely long
hours at a great personal expense whether or not that time is productive. Time
is filled with 'busy work' that's neither essential nor intellectually
satisfying. To spend less time at work than your boss is considered shameful
to the point that those who don't conform will be stigmatized for
unsatisfactory performance. 10-12 hour days and/or being required to join the
boss/coworkers after work for drinks are the norm, not the exception. Unsat
performance reviews make it impossible to move up the latter and/or get hired
at another company so there's no choice but to conform.

Either one of these issues will deter any sane high-skilled worker from
immigrating to Japan. Both are beyond recourse.

Silicon Valley (and the US tech centers in general) have a huge advantage in
that they attract top talent from around the world. Not only is acquiring the
top talent important for success but bringing people from diverse backgrounds
encourages the cross-pollination of ideas.

I'm not saying these guys won't be successful. The Japanese are intelligent
and hard working people. I'm saying that even at your best, a Japanese AI
startup will consist of a less talented, less dynamic, monoculture. Compared
to Silicon Valley which is a cultural, intellectual, and socioeconomic
powerhouse.

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sukulaku
The article is basically an advertisement for some Japanese guy's company.

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zanek
I read the entire article and all I know is they are working on deep learning
for hardware. What a complete waste of bits and my time

I kept thinking of:
[http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html](http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html)

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yeison
Isn't Yann Lecun working with NVIDIA on essentially Deep Learning hardware?

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tachyonbeam
He's worked on hardware-accelerated conv nets
([http://yann.lecun.com/exdb/publis/pdf/farabet-
iscas-10.pdf](http://yann.lecun.com/exdb/publis/pdf/farabet-iscas-10.pdf))
before and is working on new hardware for deep learning. It's become obvious
enough that there's a potential market that multiple companies are working on
this problem. Dedicated hardware might allow even bigger deep nets, as well as
using deep learning in small devices like cellphones and machines around the
home.

