AI-driven unemployment is coming. Japan will feel it, just like the rest of the world.
The first roles on the chopping block are the ones closest to pure technology: heads-down coding careers and jobs built entirely around AI research. As models keep getting sharper, it's natural that the human hands involved in those tasks will fade.
What feels wrong is writing that off as someone's own fault. That is not a fair or honest answer.
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Think about the last decade. Governments and companies alike kept telling us that data science and computer science were the next big thing. Universities and bootcamps doubled down on that story. Plenty of kids aimed their entire education at those fields. To shrug now and say, “well, you got replaced by AI, tough luck,” is irresponsibly neat.
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So what do we do instead? My answer is to flip the mindset.
My own path has been real-estate fund → e-commerce operations → marketing → full-stack engineering. I'm not a founder, but I've helped grow four different businesses from zero to about 100 million yen in annual revenue. Across all of that, one lesson stayed true: there is far more open space in "using" IT and AI than in "building" them.
Maybe 0.1% of the world will get to stay on the "build" side of AI. The rest of the opportunity lives with the people who adapt it, deploy it and weave it into the work around them. Every industry and every community still has gaps waiting to be filled, if you are willing to decide where AI actually makes a difference.
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Losing a job to AI isn't a dead end. Everything you've done still matters. The real strength now is understanding where your skills can be applied next.
Stay connected to people. The next lead usually shows up in a conversation—online or offline. One sentence, one click, can point you toward the next role.
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Lots of people freeze because of age. That is a loss in itself. There is no expiration date on starting something new. All you really need is a bit of courage.
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Let me say it again: blaming AI unemployment on personal failure is wrong. Everyone carries that risk today. That is why mocking someone who is struggling is foolish; the same surge could hit you tomorrow.
And still, we'll be okay. Even in the AI era, our value lives less in what we build and more in what we connect. See that clearly, and the next piece of work will show up.