This interview is an episode of the YouTube series “Space Conference.” The conversation unfolds as Koyo Sato answers the interviewer’s questions, weaving together topics ranging from what will remain in the AI era to why people form groups and the structure of science and society, all connected by a single thread.
During the conversation, Mr. Sato discusses the ideas he has been contemplating ever since he founded Singularity Lab. In this interview, we hear about the philosophy behind his work through the lens of the concept of “flocks.”
The one point I want to explore in this conversation is the idea that society itself is a trap set by algorithms. When I heard this phrase, I realized that even in my own circle, there are many jobs where people keep going around in circles without ever clarifying their purpose.Why do people form groups? What remains once we entrust rationality to AI? I will examine Mr. Sato’s remarks while comparing them with my own personal experiences.
Key Points of the Discussion
The core message of this conversation, in a nutshell, is that humans exist to form groups. Mr. Sato begins by outlining what will remain in the age of AI. The answer is twofold: physical objects and human relationships. Tasks such as creating documents and organizing information can be left to AI; what remains is solely the ability to engage with the physical world through the five senses and the ability to form relationships between people.The process of discussing and consulting with one another is the true value; the resulting output is not what matters. This is the starting point of his argument.
Mr. Sato uses boxing as an example. If winning were the sole objective, it would be quicker to bring a gun into the ring. Yet people still face each other with their fists—not because they want to win, but because they crave the experience of engaging with another person. That is his perspective.
Here, I’ll quote from the conversation:
In fact, that is actually the means; if anything, gathering together is the end in itself.
Earning money, winning, growing—normally, all of these appear to be ends in themselves. But if you extend the timeline to hundreds of millions of years, Mr. Sato interprets them as excuses humans have created to justify gathering in groups, where means and ends have been reversed. Since humans could not reproduce or survive without gathering in groups, he argues, we have simply invented reasons to maintain those groups throughout the ages.Religion is a mechanism that brings people together under the noble cause of prayer, and science under the pursuit of truth; pyramids were a rational choice to preserve the group for future generations using stone that does not weather—this is the perspective that humanity has built up mechanisms to avoid loneliness.
To illustrate this sensitivity to loneliness, I’ll present a few relevant statistics. According to the 2020 Census, single-person households became the most common household type. The average number of people per household has decreased from about four around 1960 to about two in 2020.A study by Holt-Lunstad et al. (2010) examining loneliness and mortality risk concluded that loneliness poses a risk comparable to smoking and obesity. I interpret this data as supporting Mr. Sato’s observation that, as single-person households become more prevalent, the act of forming groups shifts from being a means to an end.
Mr. Sato then poses the central question of this discussion: Could it be that society itself is structured in such a way that people no longer question their own purposes? We’ll explore the answer to this question in the section on the hamster analogy.
After Social Media Became the Newspaper
In the second half of the conversation, the topic shifts to the media. Mr. Sato’s view is that social media has become virtually indistinguishable from mass media. He argues that social media was originally conceived as an antithesis to newspapers and television. In Japan, mixi launched in 2004 and LINE in 2011. After that, Facebook and Twitter gained widespread popularity.
Mr. Sato’s view is as follows: “However, these days, when you look at your timeline, it’s practically indistinguishable from newspapers or news outlets.”
Social media has completely become mainstream… When you look at timelines, it’s practically the same as reading newspapers or watching the news.
Since social media has become mass media, people have started seeking out alternative spaces… and that’s simply leading to the emergence of small, individual communities.
Mr. Sato’s view is that mass-market platforms already favor the powerful; those who are constantly connected and hold vested interests are the ones who thrive. Every time a new platform like TikTok emerges, it becomes a place where people can start fresh just once, and young people migrate to the new platform.The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications’ White Paper on Information and Communications also notes that social media usage varies by generation, with younger generations tending to adopt new services more readily.
I don’t think young people’s search for new spaces is just a matter of mood.I believe that only when a new media platform emerges do we all stand on the same starting line—at least once. That’s why I think young people move on in pursuit of that one-time opportunity. I share that sentiment myself. Many of the platforms I used to read on during my student days have disappeared, and now I read on different services. Every time I “move” to a new platform, that space gradually becomes mainstream.
In economics, there is a framework known as the two-sided market. It was formalized by Rochet and Tirole in 2003, and Tirole received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2014. Media that rely on advertising are understood as markets that simultaneously serve two sides: readers and advertisers.Whenever I recall this framework, I feel it helps me understand, at least to some extent, how the mass media economy works.
There is also a book titled *The Economy of Attention*, published in 2001 by Davenport and Beck. It argues that in an age of information overload, attention itself becomes a scarce resource. I view the fact that social media timelines have come to resemble newspaper layouts as the result of this competition for attention becoming institutionalized.
As I listened to this conversation, I realized that what I seek from social media is likely the same.I believe that timelines have become arenas for the competition for attention, and that to get read there, one needs the same things newspapers have always sought: eye-catching headlines and quick responsiveness. As mentioned in the conversation, the topics are also the same. I think this uniformity is what “mass media-ization” refers to.
Beyond that, Mr. Sato focuses on the next development: since social media has become mass media, people are beginning to seek out other spaces. He argues that this simply means small, individual communities are emerging. I see this not as the emergence of new technology, but as a change in the form of these “herds.” And this discussion of the form of these herds is the subject of the next section.
The Hamster Wheel and Where to Get Off
Mr. Sato sees it this way: While the form of the group has changed, the act of forming a group itself has not. Corporations and universities were once forms of group that were rare.
The Shift Toward the “Company” as a Group
Mr. Sato summarizes it this way: While families and local communities were the center of the “herd” in the postwar era, the center of society shifted to joint-stock companies with the onset of rapid economic growth. I believe there was a time when obtaining corporate status—and indeed, being a president—was seen as a status symbol in itself.
The world’s first publicly listed corporation was the Dutch East India Company, established in 1602. In Japan, the 2006 amendment to the Companies Act abolished the minimum capital requirement, making it possible to establish a corporation with as little as one yen. According to Mr. Sato’s assessment, as the barriers to establishing a company have fallen, the distinction between corporations and groups without legal personality has narrowed.
The same is true for universities. The University of Bologna, considered the oldest surviving university, was founded around 1088, but medieval universities originated as craft guilds. I believe that, in the past, being able to attend university was a mark of status.Mr. Sato observes that today, an increasing number of universities are struggling to fill their enrollment quotas, while study groups often offer a more in-depth learning experience. Looking at labor force surveys, we see that the number of self-employed individuals and family workers has declined significantly since the postwar period, and the majority of the workforce is now made up of employees. I see in this a history in which the form of the collective has gradually changed.
A Concrete Example of Where to Get Off
This is where the main point begins. If the shape of the “herd” were the only thing that had changed, the discussion would end there. What Mr. Sato takes issue with is that every “herd” operates under a system that prevents people from questioning why it exists. He isn’t talking about YouTube or Twitter timelines. He argues that society itself is the platform.
Since society itself is the platform, people end up losing their sense of skepticism as a result of being successfully ensnared within it. I think things would start to go wrong if there were no place to step back from that for a moment.
As a result of being neatly fitted into the platform, our skepticism fades. That’s how Mr. Sato explains it. The hamster wheel is a perfect illustration of this structure.
You know those cars powered by hamsters? They exist solely to keep everyone riding in them. It’s fun, but what if we stepped off for a moment? I think it would be good to have a place where we could realize, “Aren’t we actually just going around in circles in the same spot?”
Mr. Sato himself says the hamster wheel is fun. I feel that as long as it’s spinning, there’s a sense of moving forward, and I don’t see any reason to stop. What’s needed is a place to step off—a place where you can realize you might be going around in circles.
Mr. Sato continues by saying there are two ways to learn. Knowing how a bicycle works as theoretical knowledge and actually being able to ride one are two different ways of knowing. There’s the way of knowing through academic study, and the way of understanding through hands-on experience in the real world. He says that, based on his experience starting Singy Lab, there are very few places that combine both of these approaches.
Of all the words spoken during the conversation, this is what stuck with me the most.In a society where voicing big questions makes you seem strange, this is a place where it’s okay to voice them and okay to try things out. It’s a place that goes beyond the mutual consolation found in an izakaya—a place where you actually dive into the real world and take practical steps to change it. Through those words, I came to understand that “a place to disembark” refers to a community that helps you never lose sight of your questions.
The Geocentric and Heliocentric Models
This perspective of “stories for the community” also applies to science. Mr. Sato views religion as a mechanism that gathers people under the noble cause of prayer, and pyramids as a rational choice to preserve the collective for future generations using weather-resistant stone—a medium stronger than software, which ceases to exist once the reader is gone.
So what about science? Mr. Sato says that the most unquestionable authority today is science and objectivity. This is where he brings up the geocentric and heliocentric models.
There’s the story of Copernicus’s geocentric and heliocentric theories… but wait a minute. Where exactly is something that’s standing still? What does “standing still” even mean?… Ultimately, this lacks any basis; isn’t it just a matter of which theory feels more right?
Which is correct, the geocentric or the heliocentric model? In the history of science class I took in school, I was taught that people in the past were foolish, but Mr. Sato first asks: What does it mean for something to be “still”? What does it mean for something to “move”? It seems to me that we believe in the heliocentric model today with the same mindset as those who believed in the geocentric model hundreds of years ago.Ultimately, even the truth of science reaches a point where we have no choice but to believe. This is the core of that view of science.
If we trace the history of science, we see that the heliocentric theory did not gain universal acceptance all at once. Copernicus published *On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres* in 1543, Kepler proposed elliptical orbits in 1609, and Galileo stood trial before the Inquisition in 1633.Over the course of many generations, the prevailing mindset gradually shifted.
It took a long time for the heliocentric theory to gain widespread acceptance. I believe this length of time reflects just how deeply science is intertwined with society. When people say something “feels right,” I’ve come to understand that this involves not just personal preference but also the time required for societal processes.
The same landscape can be found in the philosophy of science. In 1934, Popper defined science as a set of falsifiable propositions. In his 1962 work *The Structure of Scientific Revolutions*, Kuhn portrayed science as advancing through paradigm shifts.In 1965, the two engaged in a direct debate at the London Colloquium on the Philosophy of Science, and that discussion is included in *Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge* (1970). I believe that the criterion of falsifiability itself cannot be falsified, nor can the validity of the scientific method be proven from within science itself.As I listened to this dialogue, I felt that this was the crux of the discussion on science.
As I listened to this phrase—“the problem of determination”—I realized that refraining from viewing science as absolute and continuing to use science are not mutually exclusive.I myself have no intention of rejecting science. I believe that procedures for calculation and verification are among the most reliable tools humanity has acquired. Nevertheless, if it is our attitude of “belief” that ultimately underpins the validity of these tools, then I believe the “problem of determination” becomes a matter for all of us.Mr. Sato believes that a new paradigm will emerge—one that explains the world without contradiction while rejecting science. I, too, believe that if we look at a time span of 300 or 500 years, someone will appear who challenges the assumptions we currently take for granted. And I believe that science is currently that very assumption.
Between Artist and Consultant
Finally, the conversation returns to the human condition in the AI era. The framework for what will remain has been consistent from the beginning. I believe that only two things will remain: tangible objects and human relationships. I, too, have come to realize that the more time I spend compiling materials and organizing information, the more the time spent actually creating something stays with me.
The “tangible objects” referred to here are the energy that drives the world, transformed into a different form. Mr. Sato says that while tools such as rationality and information organization can be left to AI, the act of physically creating form itself cannot be delegated. I found this analysis to be almost too simple in its clarity.
The very distinction between intelligence and life is called into question as the basis for this argument.
“You can’t separate intelligence from life… the body, the environment, and the brain are already virtually one and the same.”
I tend to think of the brain as a command center, but in reality, I believe that even my thoughts change when my stomach feels upset. I feel that the shallowness of my thinking after pulling an all-nighter stems from the same bodily mechanisms. Mr. Sato’s view is that isolating intelligence alone and making it seem as though it’s doing something extraordinary is an outdated way of thinking.
Mr. Sato avoids the term “general-purpose artificial intelligence” and instead uses the term “general-purpose artificial life.” This is because intelligence cannot be separated from life.He says that singling out computational ability and treating it as something special is a bad habit of humans. From this perspective, the weight of the opening statement—”All that remains are physical objects and human relationships”—becomes a little deeper.
This insight aligns with experiences in robotics. It is known as Moravec’s Paradox (1988).It is the observation that physical skills—such as grasping building blocks—are more difficult for AI than advanced logic, like that required for chess. Since 1991, when Varela and others published *The Embodied Mind*, the inseparability of intelligence and the body has become a central theme in cognitive science. Mr. Sato’s intuition overlaps with this trend.
Building on this, a vision of the future workforce emerges. I believe such individuals will possess both the passion of an artist and the rationality of a consultant. Since there’s an AI like Doraemon right by their side, I think they’ll always be able to hear reasonably sound arguments. Mr. Sato’s conclusion is that what’s missing is the vitality that humans have forgotten.
I believe that if you delve deeply into only one aspect, you’ll end up doubting the other. I think that rationality alone will cause vitality to wither, while passion alone won’t lead to tangible results. I believe that the middle ground is, in fact, the most difficult place to navigate.
I felt that this perspective was the most realistic proposal in this discussion. This is because while rationality can be outsourced, no one can outsource the task of managing oneself as a living being—a unified whole of body, environment, and brain. If forming a group is the goal in itself, then nurturing that group becomes a task of physical experience rather than AI calculations.
A World Where Peace Is Rare
In the latter half of the discussion, the conversation turns to national security. Mr. Sato says this is not so much an issue we should delve into as it is something that has become necessary as a new common sense. He argues that conflict is humanity’s default state; periods of stability from an intellectual perspective are brief, and the roughly 30 years since the end of the Cold War were, by chance, an anomalous period.
Looking back at history, the Edo Shogunate lasted for about 265 years, from 1603 to 1868, and during that time, there were long periods without large-scale domestic wars.The Berlin Wall fell in 1989, and the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991. Mr. Sato views it this way: periods without conflict have been the exception in human history.
Mr. Sato’s metaphor is simple: When it rains, you open an umbrella. It would be strange not to open an umbrella just because it hasn’t rained until now. Since it has started to rain, let’s open our umbrellas.
What struck me about this analogy was the point that no one had realized they weren’t holding an umbrella. If sunny weather continues, we tend to assume that’s the norm. I believe that over those 30 years, we cultivated the very habit of taking the absence of conflict for granted. The question, I think, is whether we can let go of that habit.
On the other hand, Pinker’s *The History of Violence* (2011) argued that, viewed over the long term, violence has been on the decline. During this discussion, I realized we don’t have to choose one side or the other. What Mr. Sato is saying is that our perspective—which regarded these past 30 years as normal—was, in fact, the exception.
Mr. Sato views countries that call themselves democratic as a minority in the world—and one that is shrinking. His interpretation is that a corporation is governed by shareholders, not by democracy; there is little that is truly democratic about the groups to which we belong; and we have simply been led to believe that democracy is the standard because it is practiced by the loudest countries at the center of the world.
I took this entire conversation as a reinterpretation. Society is a trap of algorithms designed to carry people; conflict is humanity’s default state; and science is merely one of the narratives created for the herd. All of these take on a different form once we step back and set aside the assumptions we took for granted.And I came to see that having a place to step outside of those assumptions is, in itself, a new way of forming a group. On a rainy day, you open an umbrella. In an age of conflict, you have a place where you never lose your sense of inquiry. Through this conversation, I gained the perspective that questioning society itself is, in fact, a way of forming a group.
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