1. G7 Announced First International Guideline Of AI Regulation
G7 Summit meeting was hosted by PM Kishida on December 6 online, and it endorsed the international guidelines for all the AI related stakeholders that the G7 Digital and Technology Ministers had agreed on earlier on December 1.
Following are the seven key points of the guideline:
l Enhance AI’s usability knowing the risk of AI such as divergence of fake information
l Promote responsible use of AI
l Evaluate the risk of AI and establish countermeasure of the risk
l Publicize inappropriate use of AI
l Control safety of the use of AI including cybersecurity
l Develop digital watermarking and highly reliable information identification mechanism
l Input proper learning data, and protect private information and intellectual property
This is a very first international agreement related to AI, and the G7 nations will promote it to other nations and industries for participation.
2. Japan And France Renewed The 5-Year Roadmap Of Cooperation
PM Kishida and French President Macron had a short telephone conversation on December 2 in Dubai and adopted a roadmap that describes the directions of the bilateral cooperation in coming five years. This roadmap is an update of the last roadmap set in 2019.
One clear difference from the previous one is to articulate France’s intent to strengthen its engagement in the Indo-Pacific Region considering China’s aggressive presence in the region.
Also newly stated in the roadmap are collaboration between the Japanese Self Defense Force and French Military Forces in the field of space, cyber and electro-magnetic wave.
The establishment of Japan-France Economic Security Working Group was also stated in order to strengthen mutual supply chains.
3. Kishida Announced Global South Future Industries Flagship Project Concept
PM Kishida made a speech on December 5 at GZERO Summit Japan that was conducted in Tokyo by Eurasia Group.
Earlier in this March, he announced a new plan for Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) Region focusing on global supply chain.
Kishida’s speech this week was to expand the FOIP based global supply chain to include global south nations like Argentina.
He named this new concept as Global South Future Industries Flagship Project Concept.
One of concrete scenarios of the concept to integrate Global South is the government and industry collaboration with their counterparts of India to explore semiconductor and hydrogen related industries in the Indian market.
Another ones are collaboration with Chile and Argentina to explore critical mineral development and to build supply chains for EV industry.
Japanese industries are expected to collaborate with the industries of likeminded nations like the United States locally to build viable futuristic industries in those global south nations to strengthen economic security together.
4. Japan Advanced OECD’s PISA Ranking
According to the results of Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) that was announced by OECD on December 5, Japan advanced the rankings as follow:
This time Last time (2018)
Interpretation 3rd 15th
Mathematical application 5th 6th
Scientific Application 2nd 5th
PISA had been carried out by OECD every three years, but due to the pandemic, the latest one was conducted in 2022.
Around 690,000 students of fifteen years old from 81 nations underwent the same tests.
From Japan, around 6,000 first grade students of 183 senior high schools participated in last year’s PISA.
The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology attributed Japan’s advancement of the PISA results to the updates of its curriculum guidelines, while OECD explained that the changes of the rankings of the PISA results may have something to do with the pandemic period.
The duration that the Japanese government physically closed the school operations was much shorter than the average of the OECD nations.