CAUX, Switzerland--Hideki Nagashima, president and group CEO of Japan's Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance Co., believes human dignity holds the key to corporate management in the era of AI.
Nagashima discussed what skills future business leaders will need during his keynote speech given on Wednesday at an event in Caux, Switzerland. "We need leadership that can speak the language of ethics, morals and philosophy," Nagashima said. "Leaders today must possess the ability to clearly state what matters most to us and build a true consensus based on shared values, not just shared data."
He pointed out that the ability of people to share a common narrative and work together in large numbers has played a crucial role in human progress and development. "AI operates on data and numbers, but a story reminds us of our dignity through emotion, empathy, and shared human experience," he said. "In the age of AI, these human stories are more important than ever before."
Without human dignity, prosperity is meaningless
In the course of the lecture, Nagashima also raised the question, "What is the ultimate purpose of having a human CEO or leader?"
"I believe the answer to this question lies at the very core of human dignity," he said. "To me, being human means protecting essential qualities that an algorithm can never truly possess ... Management in the AI age must not erase these ... human qualities."
Nagashima believes AI "undoubtedly" makes human lives faster, smarter and more convenient. "But if human dignity is lost or broken in that process, all of our technological prosperity means absolutely nothing," he warned.
Nagashima also spoke about the challenge that humanity now faces, of figuring out how to coexist with AI. "We must be absolutely uncompromising about AI ethics and the protection of a human-centered society," Nagashima said. "We need to weave high-quality human stories, to protect sacred trust, to nurture genuine kindness and to rebuild the physical spaces for honest human dialogue."
Warning against casual adoption of AI
Nagashima pointed to the rapid advancement of AI, which he described as developing from a tool into an agent that can make decisions for itself. "It can persuade people, write poetry and even mimic or manipulate human emotions," he said.
He then analyzed the impact of AI on corporate management. "AI will certainly make our decision-making highly advanced. It will push efficiency to the absolute limit," he said. However, he did not forget to also issue a warning. "The introduction of AI must never be left as a casual, daily decision by tech teams. It must be designed as a robust governance system," he said.
AI can collect and analyze information and formulate hypotheses more quickly than humans, but it can easily become a black box whose reasoning is opaque to human users. As AI advances, human ability to evaluate the appropriateness of its responses will become critical to maintaining proper control.
Overreliance on KPIs
Nagashima also expressed the view that the influence of data, algorithms, and key performance indicators (KPIs) will grow in the AI era. "But relying too heavily on KPIs creates a dangerous trap," he warned.
As an example, he described a real-life incident in which a fixation on meeting metrics led to the neglect of ethical standards that should have been prioritized. "If we let AI optimize our companies purely for KPIs, the system will find loopholes that ignore human dignity," he said.
The keynote speech was followed by a question-and-answer session. A participant asked how to maintain a human-centered approach amid rapid global advancements in AI. In response, Nagashima stressed the need to take a step back and reflect carefully. He noted that because momentum toward AI reform is still limited, taking proactive action toward this goal is critical.
Nagashima's speech was part of an event titled "Leading with Humanity in the Age of Artificial Intelligence," hosted by the Caux Initiatives of Change Foundation, a Switzerland-based nongovernmental organization. The event took place at the Caux Palace, known for having served as a venue for dialogue between former enemy nations after World War II.
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This article is from The Yomiuri Shimbun. Neither Dow Jones Newswires, MarketWatch, Barron's nor The Wall Street Journal were involved in the creation of this content.
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