AI (artificial intelligence) is a word that Professor John McCarthy, a computer scientist and cognitive scientist, suggested in 1956. It is defined as “science and technology that can make intellectual machines, especially intellectual computer programs”. At present, research on AI has progressed, and definitions of AI differ depending on scientists and their fields. Automation and streamlining in various fields are facilitated by AI. For example, autonomous driving of automobiles, inspection of defective products, and detection of unauthorized entries on credit cards. Those technologies are fulfilled by the acquisition and study of large quantities of information through the recognition and reading of pictures and voices by computers. As we can use ChatGPT without any professional knowledge, it is now a worldwide topic. It can generate, summarize, and collect information through natural communication, conversation or sentences with other people automatically.   My research field is organic chemistry. As a new current in the development of chemical reactions, the utilization of machine learning and data science is drawing attention. At present, the development of an asymmetric catalyst that can control the three-dimensional chemistry of data science under the trials and errors of researchers is ranked as a challenge in organic synthesis. I have been working at my doctoral course on building and demonstrating methodologies that adopt machine learning to the system design of stereoscopic branched type asymmetric catalysts that supply complex molecules to green. I succeeded in the efficient development of a complicated but new catalyst system and could realize the convenience of AI.   On the other hand, many people began to worry that the development of AI will take away the work of human beings. At present, AI is specialized in specific issues, like the solution of simulated or mathematically modeled issues. However, when singularity (technical singular point: at the time of new AI, which is at the same level as the brains of human beings) will get near in the near future, AI will alternate what only human beings can do, and it is the big change in the living environment of human beings. It is likely that AI will be applied not only to simple tasks like cleaning and delivery, but also to professional fields like medical and financial services.   Then, in a technologically advanced period, what kind of AI works that cannot be alternated are there? In principle, when we reach ‘singularity’, computers can keep the same or higher-level knowledge with human beings. As computers can reduce work and human errors, we can realize cost reduction and efficiency improvements comparing with human beings. However, there is a possibility that such ‘no-mistake’ perfectness becomes a demerit. For example, take the case of kindergarten teachers. If we set up AI, AI will teach students knowledge or manners, and play with them. However, kindergarten period is important for students’ growth, and it is essential for their formation of characters and sociality that they know emotion and mistake mistakes that ‘human being teachers’ commit unconsciously. If we introduce ‘AI teachers’, it will be difficult for kindergarten students to obtain a suitable lifetime rhythm for their ages.   AI technologies are progressing rapidly. It may take a long time to reach ‘singularity’. But it is an important issue how human beings coexist with AI and complement each other’s.     SGRA Kawaraban 740 in Japanese (Original)     Chen-Hongyu, 2022 Raccoon, Researcher at Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd.              Translated by Kazuo Kawamura English checked by Sabina Koirala

My research life started in 2008, when I encountered a study on “Aesthetics” in Japan. It is not easy to define “aesthetics” in short. If I would like to explain straight forward how human beings acknowledge ‘beautifulness’, and ‘sensibility’ at that moment. So, every deed done by human beings can be an object, and its scope is infinite. For such reasons, the center of discussion about ‘aesthetics’ would sometimes be ideology or art, depending on the time or country. As the definition of art is being diversified, as mentioned above, it is possible to make research like this essay. As an example, let’s study AI music from an aesthetic viewpoint.   If you put a lot of music into an AI system, it would make similar and new music by analyzing original data. For example, “AI Composer Emily Howell” composed by David Cope, can produce a lot of music in a short time based on the old composing style of Beethoven or Mahler. In the field of popular music, a research team led by Ahn Chang-Wook under the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology in Korea developed “AI Composer EvoM”, and various popular songs including K-pop. Against such AI music, regardless of academic or non-academic field, public opinion has shown its interest in such scientific and technological aspects of AI as its historic, scientific potential and commercial value. Moreover, such controversies have recently extended to the field of ‘post-humanism’ like social and ethical issues, and aesthetic and philosophical fields by environmental philosophers.   We can re-consider, from the relationship between AI music and human beings, “creativity” which is one of the main concepts of “aesthetic”. In the evaluation of AI music in classical music (western artistic music), it is criticized as poor tasting songs that imitate songs by great classical composers simply. When I listen to AI music, I think its quality is much inferior to ‘music by human beings’. However, such criticism may be caused by the creativity of ‘human music’, which has been controversial since the latter half of the18th century. At that time, the concept of ‘genius’ or ‘originality’ rose, and the composition using existing music, which has continued since the Middle Ages, was criticized.   Namely, borrowing behavior itself means no originality. For example, the citation technique of Gustav Mahler, composer of the post-romanticism era, was related to ‘Jewishness’ (negative meaning), and its originality was suspected. Such a tendency lasted until the modernism of the 1950s and 1960s. For composers and critics who asked for novelty, the use of adjusted music means ‘return to the past’, and quoting the behavior of existing music means ‘dirty music’.   Deliberation for ‘creativity’ in AI music may become the start of this issue. Against various aesthetic questions for AI music, like 1) What is creativity? 2) What is the function of a composer? 3) What is work? 4) How do listeners react? The answers would be the following: When you input information into AI, it is ‘human composers’ that select information, and, on the other hand, it is AI that creates new music. As David Cope mentioned above, even if ‘human composers’ collect, select, and input information, AI will produce unexpected results.   From the theory mentioned above, I can say that AI has ‘originality’. According to David Cope, it does not depend on human inspiration alone but arises from another factor like a machine. And ‘originality’ does not come from anything but the context that comes around ‘originality’. ‘Originality’ comes from the composition of works that other people have done. Furthermore, it must rely on the judgement, for or against, of other people who accept or reject the things that are aesthetic. We can find such insistence of Cope in the process of creation, not in the result of works of ‘originality’. Such discussion about the ‘originality’ of AI marks an important beginning for understanding the ‘originality’ of human beings. It gives us the big suggestion that we create something new from nothing, and we can review our attitude toward appreciation, which is bound by modern mythology.     SGRA Kawaraban 739 in Japanese (Original)     CHO You Kyung /2021 Raccoon, Postgraduate student at the University of Tokyo     Translated by Kazuo Kawamura English checked by Sabina Koirala       

I am writing a doctoral thesis now and feel mentally tired quite often. Even if I do not write a doctoral thesis, there are so many dreadful things in the world. There are various ways of healing. It is effective for me to go out to beautiful and calm nature spots that are not so congested. When I go to such places and breathe deeply, I can relax mentally and physically. I feel heartwarming and think “Let us work more and harder!”   I could finish my doctoral thesis because I went to such places once a week last year. So, I would like to introduce such healing spots from my experience.   Firstly, I recommend going to the Institute for Nature Study and the National Museum of Nature and Science in Shirokane (very close to Tokyo METRO station). It is not well known among international students and is different from other parks in Tokyo. It is a real forest, not a garden like Koishikawa Koraku-en Garden or Shinjuku Gyo-en (the National Garden). There are passes and bridges for taking a walk, and various plants are growing like forests. We can forget being in Tokyo because tall trees are standing to hide towns. We cannot enjoy such feelings without going to the mountains, which take three hours to reach. It is just a place where we can enjoy walking, forgetting our daily lives.   We can enjoy its beauty every season, but the time of the autumn leaves is the best. There are many gardens or temples that are famous for their autumn leaves, and the leaves of those trees are pruned so that they do not grow tall. However, the trees in the Institute of Nature Study are not pruned and there are a lot of tall autumn trees. I think it is the only place in Tokyo where we can enjoy tall, red autumn trees. If you would like to enjoy walking, I recommend you go to the Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum. You can enjoy modern architecture and history there, and the garden is very beautiful.     I recommend you secondarily to go to Sankeien in Yokohama. Minato-MIRAI and Yamashita-Park, both in Yokohama, are famous. But I will be tired more because those places are popular spots. Sankeien, however, is located in a quiet place, ten minutes by bus from Yamashita Park, and is not crowded. It was released by a businessperson named Hara Sankei in 1906, and it is very big and worth walking. It is very beautiful, especially when plum blossoms are fully bloomed. Harbor views of Tokyo Bay from Sankeien are good also. The most highlighted one is its buildings, which were relocated from Kyoto and Kamakura. All of them are valuable historically, and I recommend them to people who like to know Japanese architecture and history. You can see many luxurious houses around Sankeien and may be interested in modern architecture while taking strolls.   The last place that I recommend is the place where I would like you to go in cherry blossom season. Some people may dislike going to famous spots that are famous for their cherry blossoms because of their crowded conditions. But the cherry blossoms alongside the Shakujii-River is different. Its beauty is just the same as that of the Meguro-River. But the Shakujii-River side is not so crowded. The river is very long, but I recommend you take the course between Otonashi-Shinsui Park (Sound Nothingness Water Park) which is very near Oji-Station (Tokyo Metro), and Naka-Itabashi Station (Tobu-Tojyo Line). The park is strange or peculiar because this river was constructed using the old waterway of the Shakujii River. It is worth going only for this reason. When you walk along the river, you can enjoy cherry blossoms for five kilometers. As there are no Yatai (food stands) and few people like Meguro-River, you can enjoy cherry blossom while being relaxed. You will be healed fantastically if you walk while watching cherry blossoms and listening to your favorite music.      You may feel persistent stress every day. But let’s refresh and heal ourselves yourself by watching beautiful scenery.      SGRA Kawaraban 737 in Japanese (Original)     Oksana KAKIN / 2021 Raccoon     Translated by Kazuo Kawamura English checked by Sabina Koirala

I have “Problem Based Training Class” at my university. Students raise various social questions in English and try to find solutions. The vacant house situation is one of the issues which were taken up recently and I found this issue is not only for students who live in the provincial area, but mass media has taken up recently very often also.   Financial Times (electronic edition) reports in their “Japan’s Empty Villages Are a Warning for China” (October 30, 2022) that the number of vacant houses in Japan is increasing, and Chinese people are afraid that their real estate bubble would “Japanize”. However, I think there is no similarity in the vacant house situation in Japan and China. Then, how does China study from Japan? I did not have any special awareness of this article at that time. But the vacant house problems in both countries have made me uneasy now.     The reasons why it became vacant in Japan, are: There is no person to live with after old residents passed, away and being almost untouched condition. Now I notice such houses between my house and the nearest station in the same situation. I can say such an area is a vacant zone.   In China, an image of vacant houses is the one that has no residents despite being built for speculative investment purposes in high-rise building areas. There is no difference in the meaning of the words “vacant house” in Japan and China. But the origins of the words “vacant house” are quite different. I have distinguished these the words “vacant house” in Japan and China in this way.    There are so many “no occupancy” high-rise apartments in China and such areas are called “鬼城”(ghost town). Many people in Japan know these words. However, in Japan, the words “ghost town” mean a trace of the place where people have lived, and residents have disappeared. Of course, some residential areas have a few vacant houses, and some areas are called ghost towns when all residents disappear. The number of statics (every five years) by the Ministry of Public Affairs for vacant houses shows 13.6% in 2018 and this figure reached a record high in these 20 years.   I realized now that vacant houses mean just the same for non-Japanese and non-Chinese. A vacant house is a vacant house. According to Financial Times, the Japanese economy are keeping continue without any economic recovery after the collapse of the real estate bubble in the 1980s, and the FT worries about the present excessive investment in housing projects in China. Yes, if we will go back to the Japanese Bubble Period, we might be able to find similarities in the vacant house situations in China.   The FT warns further that if the real estate market in China would continue in such a present situation, they may repeat the same failure as the collapse of the real estate bubble in Japan. The reason why the population of China began to decrease. In Japan, the population has begun to decrease already and there are a lot of elderly. The increase in vacant houses is one of the reasons and there exists an inheritance problem also. If they cannot clean up their inheritance problems, they must keep their houses to be vacant. Such vacant houses cause the deterioration of public security and delay in urban development.   Now real estate problems include a wide range of issues both in China and Japan. Then, what does China learn from Japan? The excessive debt problem of China Evergrande Group (CEG) is still fresh in our minds. And excessive financing to real estate prices and soaring prices of real estate became distinct. Those situations are very similar to the collapse of the real estate bubble in Japan. After the regulation of CEG, we saw a lot of companies suffer from cash flow or are burdened with their debts. People who purchased real estate from CEG began to distrust CEG and cancel their contracts. Social confusion spread among ordinal citizens. Mr. Shin-ichi Seki, Head Researcher of JRI (The Japan Research Institute, Ltd.) says “China has already learned from Japan”. Weekly Magazine “Economist,” says also “China has made interest rate reduction and deregulation of financing to real estate companies already”. (September 13, 2022) I hope matters would not become worse.   Real estate is considered precious property both in Japan and China. (Of course, such thinking is not limited to Japan and China only.) As I feel strongly that people in both countries believe building houses revitalize their economy. In Japan, we see the news about depopulation, declining birthrate, or aging society almost every day. However, in such a situation, houses are being built new every day. It is not an exaggeration. According to the data from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, the number of housings starting in 2022 increased by 0.4% from the previous year. We can say China is not an aging society. But the population began to decrease last year for the first time.  I hope both countries should reconsider comprehensively the balance between the population forecast and the supply of new housings.     SGRA Kawaraban 736 in Japanese (Original)     XIE Zhihai / Professor, KYOAI GAKUEN University   Translated by Kazuo Kawamura English checked by Sabina Koirala

My life was a stream headed North. I was born in Nantou (南投)County in Taiwan. Nantou County is the only county that has no sea. It locates in the center of Taiwan and has a famous tourist spot “Sun Moon Lake (日月潭)”. Except for such tourist spots, it is not bustling and there is an image of the countryside. I enjoyed my childhood in Caotun (草屯), and moved to Taichung (台中) to go to a prestigious junior high school and high school. I went to an elite university in Taipei (台北). I headed for the North and urbanity. I am now in another further northern island country and living in the international big city Tokyo.   I do not forget a day when I was impressed with snow in Tokyo for the first time in my life. I used a humidifier for the first time because I felt an occurrence strongly of various health problems like skin drying when the temperature becomes low. I was surprised at the length of the night also when the sun sets at 16:30 in winter. When I encounter people who came from many countries, using complicated railway networks which seem to be a labyrinth of a different world, I realized that I am living in a big city.   The subject of my research is a Confucian scholar Ogyu Sorai (荻生徂徠) in Edo Period. He was ejected from Edo (Tokyo) and spent his teens and early twenties living in Nanso Town (midlands of Chiba Prefecture). After returning to Edo in the latter half of twenties, he was enlightened to be in a situation surrounded by “enclosed districts (廓)”. He compared his “Experience in Nanso” with thriving Edo in his front. And he concluded that the influence on  the people by “ customs (風俗) is big. Because their insight comes from the environment in which they are living, and their own experience. As a result, he emphasized the importance of their ability to understand “native customs” relatively apart from their present “enclosed districts”.      As I have changed the living places, I could acknowledge the difference between “native customs” and the limitation of “closed districts”. Though various information is flowing freely and quickly now, people’s ways of living and interests are different. Needless to say, there is a big difference in culture and concept of value once they cross borders.   Before I came to Japan, I had a simple impression of Japan. I shared the Taiwanese common images of Japan like “foods are salty” and “people are polite” etc.  Although these conclusions are not wrong, the complexities of Japanese culture are summarized in a very rough style. “Salty” may be applied to ‘Ramen’ or ‘ton-katsu (pork cutlets). Japanese home cooking is relatively lighter seasoning than that of Taiwan. I think traditional Japanese cuisine does not pursue heavy seasoning. As to Japanese politeness, they keep a certain distance in human relations. Sometimes, I feel the difference between their principles and real intentions.     Through my living in Japan for years associating with a lot of Japanese friends, I understand now that we cannot comprehend “the others” simply. And, at the same time, I feel I could comprehend various phenomena in “ourselves”. For example, when Japanese friends asked me “what are the characteristics of Taiwan foods?”, I noticed the meaning of this question for the first time. My conclusion was “Taiwan foods are sweet”. We can see discourteous behaviors often in Taiwan. But I think it comes from an atmosphere that does not pursue “conformity” with humane societies.   The purpose of comparison of “ourselves” and “the others” is not a judgment of their superiority or inferiority. Based on the understanding of the actual situation of “ourselves and the others”, to understand the others, we speculate “the others” by our features. And, to acknowledge ourselves, we contrast ourselves from the features of others. Through such understanding, we can relativize “the others and ourselves” and release both from “enclosed districts”. As I changed my living places very often, such understanding is very beneficial for me and useful for my comparative study of the history of thoughts also.     SGRA Kawaraban 733 in Japanese (Original)     CHIANG Hsun-yi /2021 Raccoon, Studying at ph. D course in Humanities and Sociology at the University of Tokyo   Translated by Kazuo Kawamura English checked by Sabina Koirala