Graduation address for the September 2019 academic year

Congratulations to all the graduates of September! We can only imagine the joy of the parents who have witnessed this special day. On behalf of Tohoku Gakuin University, I offer my heartfelt congratulations.

Currently, we have one Graduate Schools student here who has successfully submitted their doctoral dissertation and obtained their PhD, and 48 undergraduate students who have studied for more than four and a half years and obtained their bachelor's degrees.

As you leave this university and embark on your journey into the 21st century, you will face numerous challenges, including the aftermath of the Great East Japan Earthquake, which left deep scars on the coastal areas of Tohoku, such as the Fukushima nuclear disaster; environmental destruction symbolized by global warming and climate change; and peace issues that have become increasingly volatile due to nationalistic policies. In this graduation ceremony, which could be considered your final lecture at the academy, let me speak to you about the problems facing our rapidly developing information society.

As you may have read in translation, the young Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari, in his worldwide bestsellers "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" (2011) and its sequel "Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow" (2015), describes the crisis facing humanity in the face of the information revolution as follows: It is the "cognitive revolution" that allowed Homo sapiens, our ancestors, to survive, unlike other human species such as Neanderthals and Homo erectus. Comparing Neanderthals and Homo sapiens, Neanderthals were larger, more intelligent, and more agile. However, it was precisely because Homo sapiens were weaker that they desperately created tools that allowed for safe hunting, and it was precisely because they were weaker that they cooperated with each other to strengthen the group. They enhanced their imagination through collaborative work. The "cognitive revolution" is "the ability to transmit information about things that do not exist at all," in other words, "imaginary fiction," and Homo sapiens were able to acquire this ability. In other words, the cognitive revolution was the power to share "concepts" and "narratives," gaining collective strength through legends, myths, and religion, and enabling collaborative work through tools such as "writing" to record information and "money" to facilitate trade. Thus, Homo sapiens then dramatically increased their population through the "agricultural revolution," and with the modern "scientific revolution," they have now arrogantly come to believe that nature is not something to be feared, but something that can be brought under their control.

However, the rapidly developing "information revolution" today has threatened Homo sapiens' ability to "transmit information about things that don't exist," that is, "imaginary fiction." Harari calls this the "trap of dataism." We Homo sapiens have devised the convenient tool of the computer and succeeded in creating a "new fiction" called information capitalism, but our daily lives are interwoven with multiple layers of information, and it is not easy to make decisions independently of the information network that surrounds us. The giant IT companies known as GAFA (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon), which you are all familiar with, collect vast amounts of data. For example, taking Facebook's "Like" button as an example, Facebook tries to capture what kind of things a person tends to "Like," that is, their interests and values. If someone clicks "Like" 300 times, the algorithm generated from that data—that is, "the procedures and methods for calculating, solving problems, and arriving at decisions"—can predict that person's opinion more accurately than their own family. Harari argues that as humans become increasingly swayed by "data" when making decisions, and entrust much of their judgment and decision-making to it, they will no longer need the "imaginary fictions"—that is, "narratives" and "concepts"—that formed the basis of Homo sapiens' development. As a result, important concepts that enable collective strength and collaboration, such as "democracy," "human rights," and "peace," will be forgotten. Beyond this "trap of dataism," the point at which artificial intelligence (AI) surpasses human intelligence is called the "singularity." It is said that about half of the jobs currently performed by humans, such as self-driving cars and bank tellers, will be taken over by AI, and a large "useless caste" will emerge. Harari says that the 21st century, which you are about to embark on, will be an era where, alongside the problem of economic inequality, the world will be divided into a small elite who possess algorithms and a group of people who have become completely enslaved by data based on the free information provided by that elite, and inequality will be upgraded.

While I have pointed out the negative aspects of the seemingly convenient information society, I am confident that you have acquired the strength to overcome these difficulties at Tohoku Gakuin University and Graduate Schools. The Christian character education that is the founding spirit of Tohoku Gakuin University respects individual dignity, and the flowing tradition of liberal arts education should provide a perspective that liberates people from the "trap of dataism" through liberal arts education, which is the study of liberation. Studying liberal arts is not simply about acquiring superficial skills or increasing knowledge and data. In this age, such information can be easily obtained by searching the internet. Rather, you should have acquired the ability to analyze large amounts of knowledge and data from a comprehensive perspective (the ability to edit, or the ability to create the "narrative" story I have been referring to and to cherish the "concept" that protects human dignity). Therefore, I sincerely hope that you will not consider your learning to end with graduating from university. Just as an operating system (OS) is the information processing capability of a computer, you cannot simply install an OS and then leave it alone. I hope that you will be diligent and continue to "upgrade your own internal OS" through various lifelong learning experiences.

I offer my heartfelt congratulations on your graduation, and with that, I conclude my remarks.

Haruki Onishi, President of Tohoku Gakuin University