ChatGPT in Kimono: How Japan’s Liberal Arts Students are Mastering AI

(This article shares the same content with “When AI Meets Liberal Arts: The Rise of the Tech-Savvy Humanities Grad”. This article encompasses both Japanese culture and the contents of ChatGPT, so by presenting it as two separate articles with different titles, I hope to reach a broader audience!)

Hello, there!!

Artificial intelligence has evolved rapidly, bringing tremendous changes to our lives and work environments. AI technologies like ChatGPT have garnered much attention, with the potential to impact many occupations. Within this context, AI talent in the liberal arts fields has gained notice, with expectations of further development.

Today, in this essay, I want to consider why liberal arts AI talent is necessary, as well as its role and prospects.

(In Japan, academic disciplines are often broadly categorized into two main streams: “Bunkei” (文系), which refers to the humanities or liberal arts, and “Rikei” (理系), which pertains to the sciences. This distinction is deeply ingrained in the educational system and affects students’ academic and career paths significantly.)

What exactly is AI talent? Let’s define it!

First, what exactly are AI talents? AI talent refers to people who understand AI technology and can use it to solve problems and engage in creative activities. In liberal arts fields, broad knowledge is required across areas like history, philosophy, and literature. By utilizing AI, complex analysis and judgments drawing on this knowledge become possible.

For example, historians using AI to analyze massive amounts of documents may construct new historical perspectives. Economists performing market analysis could leverage AI’s predictive abilities to formulate investment strategies. The utility value of AI is extremely high even in liberal arts fields. However, there are still problems AI itself cannot solve. For instance, understanding ethical issues and intrinsically human emotions is difficult for AI alone. This is why liberal arts AI talent plays such an important role.

Desirable qualities for AI talent include not just logical thinking but also creativity and emotional understanding. Especially in Japan, with its rich culture and unique values, it is vital to understand these while operating AI. For example, to convey the beauty of Japan’s four seasons to the world requires not just providing information, but expressing the underlying culture and sensibilities through AI.

In educating liberal arts AI talent in the ChatGPT era, acquiring expertise is essential, as is nurturing the ability to collaborate with AI. To collaborate with AI requires understanding its mechanisms and utilizing it for creative work. This necessitates knowledge not just of programming but of human-AI interfaces.

Looking to the future, it seems safe to say that liberal arts AI talent will become increasingly important. As AI technology advances, many occupations may be replaced by AI, but liberal arts AI talent can provide uniquely human values by leveraging creativity and emotional understanding. Therefore, in a future where humans and AI coexist, the role of liberal arts AI talent is expected to expand even further.

Summary of “Becoming a Liberal Arts AI Talent in the ChatGPT Era”

In Japan, a guidebook was recently published on how those with backgrounds in the liberal arts can thrive in the AI industry amidst the rapid evolution of AI technology today.

While explaining what AI is and how it is impacting society, this book concretely illustrates how those of liberal arts backgrounds can provide value in the AI sphere.

Even in the face of technological innovations like ChatGPT, “Becoming a Liberal Arts AI Talent in the ChatGPT Era” shows how the knowledge and skills of the liberal arts remain valuable and can contribute to society. Readers can gain through this book the knowledge and skills to survive the AI age and carve out their careers.

In the modern era, dividing things into liberal arts or sciences seems nonsensical, but in reality, many freeze up when it comes to IT. While ChatGPT itself, when asked if it is IT, would surely recognize IT elements in its underlying implementation, that are irrelevant to using it.

Rather, those skilled in writing can handle it even more appropriately, so let’s learn to use it correctly! This seems to be the content.

The book covers mainly the history and basics of AI. (Though using the term “liberal arts”) What we non-engineers should do to use AI? The main ways to use it (writing prompts), and how to get along with AI based on that in easy-to-understand explanations.

The author defines the “7 Powers” necessary for utilizing AI:

- AI Utilization Mindset

- Ability to Understand AI Principles

- AI Mechanism Comprehension

- AI Case Gathering Ability

- AI Planning Ability

- AI Prompt Ability

- AI Management Ability

Let’s look at them in order.

AI Utilization Mindset

Master generative AIs like ChatGPT require “unlearning” conventional wisdom and knowledge and proactively learning about AI evolution and utilization methods to avoid being left behind. Rather than seeming difficult, having a “try it first” mindset is crucial.

But that doesn’t mean being jerked around by AI would be putting the cart before the horse. It’s vital to understand that combining the “power to utilize AI properly” and “what you’re good at (things only humans can do)” is your “strength.”

AI Basic Understanding Ability

Understand that AI can understand human language, have natural conversations, perform tasks without prior training, and possess expertise to answer specialized questions.

Grasping this clarifies the difference between what AI can do alone versus as a human assistant, recognizing the latter’s much wider applicability and allowing you to imagine concrete use cases.

AI Mechanism Comprehension Ability

GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) utilizes transformer technology to learn by reading massive amounts of data. By focusing on portions of the data deemed important via attention mechanisms, high learning efficacy is achieved.

Furthermore, by training itself with massive data, it acquires even more knowledge. And by receiving human feedback, accuracy rises even higher.

In other words, because GPT learns using extraordinarily huge data, it has extremely high versatility. This means use cases and scenarios are not particularly limited by the information.

AI Case Gathering Ability & AI Planning Ability

Actively gathering past and rapidly changing modern AI use cases (AI Case Gathering Ability) is crucial to consider how to utilize AI yourself (AI Planning Ability). Without this, you cannot think about how to leverage AI.

That said, you may not be able to do anything groundbreaking right away. It’s best to start with familiar tasks. Think of giving instructions to an excellent recruit — this becomes your prompt to AI almost verbatim.

AI Prompt Ability

Interacting with AI is through prompts. Honing prompt ability will likely become more important than programming ability going forward.

- Simple Prompts

Often sufficient

Give a “request” — indicate what you want done

Decide the “role” — determine AI’s position

Specify the “format” — decide the form of info AI will output

- Detailed Prompts

An enhanced simple prompt to increase accuracy

Give a “request” — indicate what you want done

Decide the “role” — determine AI’s position

Specify the “format” — decide the form of info AI will output

Set “rules” — establish concrete output conditions

Request “evaluation & improvement” — have AI self-evaluate and aim for further improvement

Provide “reference knowledge & examples” — present additional info and examples for execution

Control with “execution scenario” — have continual conversations following a predefined scenario

For example:

#Request

You are [role]. While strictly following [rules], execute [request details] and output in [format] format.

#Role

XXX

#Rules

Please XXX.

Evaluate using [evaluation] and include it in the output.

Referencing [reference], output example.

#Format

XXX format

#Evaluation

Evaluate at XX level

#Reference

XXX

Adhering precisely to this format is unnecessary, but considering these elements when writing prompts increases result accuracy. Practice is extremely important!!

AI Management Ability

Nothing too difficult — simply clarify the “issues to be solved” and decide which tasks to delegate to AI.

The key is taking stock of your work and leaving what machines (AI) can do to machines (AI). Always think about whether this can be handled by AI and whether you can use it effectively.

Conclusion

In summary, liberal arts AI talent in the ChatGPT era can leverage uniquely human sensibilities and creativity while harnessing AI strengths to generate new value. Education and development of liberal arts AI talent is expected to progress further, revealing a new society where AI and humans cooperate. At the center of this will undoubtedly be liberal arts AI talent.

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