Masaaki Son (Japanese name: Son Masayoshi), chairman of Japan's SoftBank Group (SBG), stated on the 21st that "superintelligent AI (ASI) exceeding human intelligence by more than 10,000 times will appear in about 10 years." This remark is interpreted as emphasizing SoftBank's continued investment in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) going forward.
According to the Sankei Shimbun, Chairman Son said at SoftBank Group's regular shareholders meeting held in Tokyo that day, "I sincerely believe that Masaaki Son was born to realize ASI," and emphasized, "All the businesses I have done so far have been preparatory exercises, and the 'SoftBank mission' is to use ASI to evolve humanity."
Chairman Son predicted that once ASI becomes a reality and is connected to robots, it will be able to perform various physical tasks such as production, cleaning, and shopping on behalf of humans. He also praised Arm, the British semiconductor design company acquired by SoftBank in 2016, as a key company for realizing ASI. He stated, "Since semiconductors are indispensable for AI development, we will continue to focus on Arm's growth."
He introduced that SoftBank had considered acquisitions and investments in the U.S. AI chip maker Nvidia and ChatGPT developer OpenAI, but these did not materialize. He then asserted, "However, if I could buy only one between Arm and Nvidia, I would buy Arm without hesitation for even a second."
The Sankei Shimbun reported that Chairman Son did not comment on the personal information leakage incident involving Line Yahoo, created by merging Line and Yahoo Japan under Japan Z Holdings, a joint venture between SoftBank and Naver, nor on the issue of reviewing the capital relationship between Line Yahoo and Naver.
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