Within words, there are "people." Only humans can use the "power of words."

Long ago, I heard a story called the Tower of Babel. People were gathered from all over the world to build a tower so high it would reach the heavens.
Higher still. Closer to the heavens.
Eventually, wouldn't humans be able to approach even God?

Higher still. Closer to the heavens. Eventually, wouldn't humans be able to approach even God?

God was angered by such human arrogance.

When I heard it as a child, I thought it was just a strange old tale. But as an adult, thinking about it, I can see something like human nature in this story.
Possessing wisdom. Possessing technology. Becoming able to do what could not be done before.
This story reveals something of the human condition.

Possessing wisdom.
Possessing technology.
Becoming able to do what could not be done before.

Then humans begin to think,
“Is there anything we cannot do?”

However,

Humans cannot become God.

The Tower of Babel may be a story that warns against such human arrogance.

And one more thing. There is something that has always bothered me. God did not just stop at destroying the tower.
He took 'language' away from humans.
Why? Why would God 'take language away' from humans?

He took 'language' away from humans.

Why? Why would God 'take language away' from humans?

“In the beginning was the Word.”

Thinking about that, I remembered a famous passage from the Bible.

“In the beginning was the Word.”
Why is it not “In the beginning was man”? Why is it not “In the beginning was wisdom,” or “In the beginning was power”? At the Tower of Babel, language was taken away. And in the Bible, it says,

“In the beginning was the Word.”

When I consider these two things side by side, I suddenly became interested in what “language” really is.

Is language only for conveying something to others? I feel like it is not just that.

People also converse with themselves.

Even when we are not talking to anyone, we are talking to ourselves in our heads. “Was that the right thing to do?” “Why did I say that?” “Why does that person’s comment bother me?” “What do I really want to do?”

Thinking while putting things into words, and while putting things into words, realizing one's own emotions.

However,
answers are not always forthcoming.

"What is this feeling?"
Even though it is my own feeling,
I don't even understand it myself.

In fact,
there are times when I don't even know what it is that I don't understand.

But,
"there is something I don't understand yet"
—I can at least realize that.

I feel humanity in that.
I think because I don't understand.
Because I don't understand even after thinking,
I think again.

And sometimes,
I try stopping the thinking.

I go for a walk.
I watch the scenery from a train window.
I talk to people.
I look at old photos.
I do nothing and just drift.

Then, after a few days,
it might connect with a completely different event.
"Ah, so that's what it was,"
I suddenly realize.

Human thought,
perhaps, does not head toward an answer in a straight line.

It is born within waste, detours, and margins,
and I feel it slowly grows within those margins.

AI provides "correct answers."

Right now, before our eyes,
something very convenient has appeared.

It is AI.
If you ask it something you don't understand,
it answers immediately.
If you ask it to write a text, it writes it in a few seconds.
If you ask for 10 titles, it gives you 10.

"Make it more moving,"
"Make it a little shorter,"
"Make it easier to understand"—
it responds accurately and promptly to such requests.

AI provides "correct answers."

To be precise,
it offers up things that look like correct answers
at a surprising speed.
I myself also use AI to write text.
The more I use it,
the more I think, "This is an amazing tool."

Therefore, I have no intention of denying AI.

Rather, in the coming era,
it is important to make AI a weapon.

But, precisely for that reason, I want to be careful.

Seeking answers from AI and
entrusting the very act of thinking to AI are different things.

Just because AI can give you the right answer immediately,
it doesn't mean that humans
have to try to give the right answer immediately, too.

A prompt received from someone else

cannot convey your own thoughts.

Recently,
I often see things that say,
"If you use this prompt, you can write good sentences."

Of course, it is convenient.
The structure of the writing is also polished.
Answers that sound plausible also come out.

But,
within a prompt received from someone else,
your own thinking is not included.

Why did I find this event interesting?
Why did only these words remain in my heart?
Why did I stop when others just walked by?
That "why" exists only within me.

Prompts can be borrowed.
Writing structures can be borrowed.
Knowledge can be borrowed.
You should also feel free to
borrow the power of AI as much as you like.

But,

the reason why your heart was moved
is the one thing you cannot borrow from others.

For that,
you need time to think.
You need time to daydream.
You need time for things that cannot be put into words.
I think of that as "white space."

After listening to the life story of an 80-year-old man,

I understood the meaning of that a little better.

The other day, I compiled the life of a business owner who had just celebrated his 80th birthday into a book.
He left his snow-covered hometown in Shinshu at 18,
went to Nagoya, and worked recklessly.
Eventually, he owned a small factory,
started a company,
hired employees,
protected his family,
and turned 80.
I spent many hours interviewing him about his life.

Interestingly,
what came out when he looked back on his life
was not just stories of great success.
The school song from junior high school.
The ramen he ate in the company cafeteria
with a friend who has since passed away.
The sukiyaki he ate with his mother after taking her to Meiji-mura with his first paycheck.
The boss of the sheet metal shop he has known for 30 years.
The first company trip to Hokkaido.
The night he told his wife after the fact that he had quit his job.
The night he decided on an M&A and drank alone until dawn.

When you ask one thing,
he remembers another.
When you show him one photo,
memories not captured in the photo come back to life.

And, sometimes, he falls silent.

There are times when "silence" becomes words.

As I conduct interviews,
I cherish this silence.

After asking a question,
sometimes an answer does not come back immediately.
10 seconds.
20 seconds.
Sometimes even longer.

Are they remembering their younger days?
In their mind,
are they searching for someone's face?
Are they choosing their words,
wondering what they should say?

If I were to be thoughtful
and ask the next question,
I could fill the silence.

But,
I dare to wait.

Then,
a single word comes out.

That single word
is sometimes much deeper
than the answer to the question I had prepared.

Come to think of it,
silence is not a time of nothingness.
The emotions before they become words
are there.

There is time spent searching for forgotten memories.
There is time spent trying to touch
feelings they didn't even know they had.

Therefore,
when listening to someone,
perhaps one should not just listen to the words.

Sometimes, 'silence' becomes a word.

An 80-year-old man
also had such moments.
He speaks.
He remembers.
He speaks again.
And then, he falls silent.
I did not rush for an answer.
That silence, too,

I thought, was a part of the 80 years that person had lived.
Before starting a company.
Before moving to Nagoya.
Before leaving his hometown at 18.
Going back further, and further.

The person who was there at the end
was a boy, living in a snow-deep hometown,
who was nobody yet.

By that boy's side,
was his mother.

There was a silence for a while.
Then, the 80-year-old man said quietly,

'Mom, thank you.'

Why was it 'Mom' instead of 'Mother'?

That word remained strangely in my heart.
It wasn't 'I am grateful to my mother.'
It wasn't 'It is thanks to my mother,' either.

'Mom'it was.
Just a single word.

But the moment I heard those words,
I felt as if the 80-year-old executive in front of me
had returned to being a young boy in his snow-covered hometown.

If I were to input into an AI,
"Please write a moving piece about an 80-year-old man expressing gratitude to his late mother,"
it might create even more beautiful words.

Even an AI
can produce the word
"Mom."

However,
it is the person himself who imbued that single word "Mom"
with 80 years of time.

There is a snow-covered hometown.
There is an 18-year-old farewell.
There are days spent working in Nagoya.
There is a first paycheck.
There is sukiyaki at Meiji-mura.
There are the years spent building a company.

There is a wife.
There are children.
There are people who have passed away.
Indeed, there is a time
that belongs only to that person, who has lived for 80 years.

Therefore,
even for the same word "Mom",
the weight is different.

Precisely because it is the age of AI, we do not need to make humans efficient as well.

AI
will become even smarter from here on.

Writing,
planning,
and translation
will likely become much better than they are now.

If so,
there is no need for humans to compete with AI.
Things that AI is good at,
should be left to AI.

Instead,
I want to cherish more the things that only I can feel.

If you don't understand,
try thinking about it a little.

If you can't find an answer,
try leaving it as it is.

If your heart is moved,
try thinking about why it was moved.

If you cannot put it into words well,
you don't have to force yourself to.

It is okay to be silent.
From within that margin,
a version of yourself you didn't even know existed
might suddenly appear.

And then,
you can pass it to the AI after thinking that far.

AI
will expand upon it.
It will polish it.
It will ask questions from different angles.

Sometimes,
it will help you search for words
that you could not have found on your own.

The more you use AI, the more you come to know yourself as a human, rather than stopping thinking for yourself.

I
want to use it in that way.

At the Tower of Babel,
why did God take away 'language'?

The true answer,
I do not know.
But, because I do not know,
I try to think about it.
What does it mean,
'In the beginning was the Word'?

That, too,
I still do not know.
To keep what I do not know,
as something I do not know,
within myself.

Perhaps that margin,
is also what it means for a human to think.

An 80-year-old man,
after a long silence, said,
'Mom'.
When I heard that one word,

somehow,
the concept of words,
became a little more interesting than before.

Within words, there is a 'person'.
That was the story.