"What AI Will Bring to Japan and Ireland" A Letter from the Ambassador - September

Dear friends,

I hope that this letter will find you well as the cooler days of autumn begin to arrive. In Japan, autumn is often called the season of harvest, of reading, of good food and of sport. Here in Ireland, too, we can certainly feel that autumn has arrived.

Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of sharing dinner with an Irish politician, and we talked about all sorts of things. One conversation in particular has stayed with me: the life of one of Ireland’s great figures of the first half of the nineteenth century, Daniel O’Connell.

O’Connell was born in 1775 in Caherciveen, County Kerry, in the south-west of Ireland. In 1829, he helped achieve Catholic Emancipation, removing many of the restrictions that had been placed on Irish Catholics and opening the way for them to enjoy political, social and economic equality with Protestants.

He achieved this through peaceful means, most famously by organising his great “monster meetings”, which brought together huge numbers of people. In doing so, O’Connell not only achieved Catholic Emancipation, but also helped lay the foundations of modern Irish society and politics.

There was, of course, no IT or AI in O’Connell’s time. Yet I find myself wondering what it was that enabled him to touch the hearts of so many people. I imagine that it was his leadership — and, at its heart, his character, which enabled him to embody the change that his time was calling for.

Two hundred years have passed since O’Connell’s day. Today, we live in a world where enormous amounts of information can be shared across the globe in an instant. AI can anticipate our questions, answer them and make suggestions based on our individual interests and preferences. This has become an ordinary part of everyday life.

And yet, perhaps because of this, we are also living in what is sometimes described as an age of division. We have more information than ever before, but much of it is filtered for us. We can easily end up hearing only what we want to hear, and avoiding opinions that may be uncomfortable or difficult to accept. If that makes it easier for each of us to see the world from only one particular point of view, then there is an irony here: despite all the information at our fingertips, perhaps in some ways it has become harder to live in today’s world than it was in the past.

This month, I visited the Irish Government’s AI Office, just 41 days after it was established. It was fascinating to meet Director Paul Byrne and his seven colleagues and to see them building this new organisation from the ground up. As I watched them at work, I found myself thinking back to a joint document issued by the leaders of Japan and Ireland just four years ago. There was not even a mention of the word “AI” in it. How quickly things have changed.

A few days later, I met the people behind Beyond Grid, a company using AI to help optimise energy businesses. I also met Equal1, which is working to make quantum technology smaller and more accessible to a wide range of businesses, while already looking towards what may come after the AI era.

I am very pleased to see that Irish companies and the Irish Government are both keen to work with Japan in the field of AI. Some Irish companies are establishing a presence in Japan, and opportunities for cooperation and business between our two countries are growing rapidly.

Then, why is cooperation in AI developing so actively between two island nations that are, geographically speaking, so far apart?

In diplomacy, we often use the expression “like-minded countries”. Literally, it means countries that share the same aspirations. But when I think about Japan and Ireland, I feel that there is something more than simply having the same aspirations. 

Deep down, there are values and ways of looking at the world that we share. For instance, there is an old idea that every living thing has a spirit within it. It may sound a little like superstition. But perhaps there is something familiar in the thought that the tree in your garden, a stone on the seashore, a flower growing by the roadside, or an animal passing by might each have something of its own spirit.

I have had more than one conversation with Irish friends about this and found myself saying, almost instinctively, “Yes, exactly.” There is something about the way we look at the world that feels surprisingly close.

When I think about O’Connell’s “monster meetings”, I imagine that beneath the enormous gatherings of people there was something even more important: a shared belief that brought them together. Their common aspirations had deep roots in a soil of shared values and faith.

So, what might cooperation between Japan and Ireland on AI bring in the years ahead?

What we share at heart goes beyond our respect for nature. We also share a strong belief that peace in the international community can be sustained by upholding the rule of law. Put simply, perhaps it comes down to this: “If we make the rules together, then we should all follow them together.”

That is one of the things I value most about the relationship between Japan and Ireland. Our cooperation is not simply based on practical interests. It is rooted in shared values, and those values give our common aspirations deep roots.
The international community is now working hard to establish common rules for AI and to encourage the development and widespread use of trustworthy AI. I believe that Japan and Ireland, precisely because we share these fundamental values, can make an important contribution to that effort.

And tomorrow, October begins.

Here in Dublin, we will have an AI summit, bringing together Ireland’s knowledge and expertise. I very much hope that this gathering will help us take another step towards a future in which artificial intelligence can be trusted and put to good use.

As the seasons change, please take good care of yourselves. I look forward to seeing you again next month — perhaps somewhere in Ireland, or perhaps right here on these pages.

Until then, warmest wishes to you all.

Yours sincerely,

MIYAGAWA Manabu
Ambassador of Japan to Ireland