SoftBank’s Next 30-Year Vision

To foresee 300 years in the future, I looked back how people lived 300 years ago.
Three centuries ago, average life expectancy was only 33 years. Even the wealthy nobility only lived to be 39 on average. But 300 years also marks the dawn of the Industrial Revolution.People began to build steam engines and discover iron-making processes. Spinning technology, steam ships, and steam engine railways made their debuts during this enlightened age. Machines dramatically changed lifestyles as their overwhelming power enabled humans to extend their muscular abilities. At the same time, a backlash known as the Luddite movement erupted in the early 19th century. People claimed that machines were intrusive, frightening and would steal jobs from humans.

Looking at our lives today, however, machines and humans co-exist as we make full use of the incredible abilities of machines. Humans are becoming liberated from the backbreaking labor and dangerous work they used to have to do. Machines dig to build water supply systems, life is far more hygienic, and much safer. The extended average life expectancy today is a result of the Industrial Revolution.
Over the past 300 years, machines created a paradigm shift that dramatically changed the way we live. How will technology evolve and lifestyle change in the next 300 years?

I believe that in the next 300 years, a literal Information Big Bang will take place, and that today we are still at the gateway to it.

Over the last 100 years, the computational capacity of computer systems has increased by 3.5 quadrillion times in terms of cost performance. The basic principle of computers is the binary system. The calculation is done in such a way that the current is either flowing or not flowing, and the transistor is either on or off. In fact, human brain cells have exactly the same mechanism, with the synapses in brain cells functioning through a binary system of "on or off." There are about 30 billion brain cells in the human cerebrum. According to Moore's law, the number of transistors per chip will exceed 30 billion in 2018. I did the same calculation 20 years ago, and the answer hasn't changed.

Through the evolution of computers, “brain computers” were created. I imagine that 300 years from now, people will take brain computers for granted.
Conventional computers are called Neumann computers, with a CPU and memory. They can calculate only when programmed. Brain computers, by contrast, are entirely new and different. Like the human brain, a brain computer accumulates data, or knowledge, on its own. Instead of waiting to be programmed, a brain computer educates itself and acquires algorithms, or wisdom, by programming itself. The automatic collection of data/knowledge has already started on Yahoo! and Google search, and it is only a matter of time before we see the same elsewhere.

I think that giving a computer a higher level of emotion will actually lead to control. Realizing super-intelligence with truly high-dimensional feelings such as "kindness" and "love" is the right evolutionary path of brain computers. That is what I believe. We at the SoftBank Group want to realize a society where super-intelligent computers coexist with humans to contribute to our happiness, just as one person makes another one happy, or as machines enable us to live happier lives.

After addressing our Vision for the next 300 years, our Vision for the next 30 years may seem very realistic. Thirty years from now, the number of computer chips will be 100,000 times the number of brain cells. Moreover, the chip will be able to communicate 3 million times faster with 1 million times the memory capacity of today. What happens then? Thirty years from now, the iPhone may store 500 billion songs, or 300 million-year worth of newspaper data, or 30,000 years worth of video. There is so much information that you cannot finish enjoying in your lifetime, and everything is stored in your handy device, which only costs around 300 dollars.

When asked, "What did Masayoshi Son invent?" I would answer, "I invented a structure for a sustainable growth for 300 years." The Strategic Synergy Group has a company structure built for sustainable growth. In the 20th century, most corporate organizations aimed at mass production and mass sales with a centralized pyramid structure. Instead, I want the Group to be a web-type organization, moving away from centralization.

In July 2010, SoftBank Academia will open to foster successors who will lead the Group’s next era. The institution accepts 300 students, within and outside the Group. I myself will be the first principal and will run the operation. Rather than raising a successor in a month or two, I will create a training program that will take over a decade to complete. The students will be trained through competition under my direct mentorship.