Reading

Nobuyuki Yasui

Auditor, Brother Precision Industry Co., Ltd.; Member of Go Mita-kai; 1960 Faculty of Law (Political Science)

When a reporter asked a famous professional Go player, "How far ahead do you read?" the player replied, "1,000 moves at a glance, and 20 variations up to 50 moves ahead." By the way, in 1959, our Go club won its second consecutive national championship at the Japan Student Go Team Tournament, which featured representatives from six regions: Hokkaido, Kanto, Chubu, Kansai, Kyushu, and Chugoku-Shikoku. At that time, the Go club consisted of the "Three Crows" (Hiroshi Kubo, Isao Yamashita, and Kiichi Nebashi), followed by Kenji Yamauchi, Nobuyuki Yasui, Seiichiro Kobayashi, and Masao Nomura. The review sessions after practice games were always a truly enjoyable time for exchanging opinions, and looking back now, they were "reflection meetings on the shallowness of our reading."

Even for top-tier players, the number of formal matches in a lifetime is about 10,000. They reflect on good and bad moves through analysis of those matches, but the emergence of AI has changed everything. AI instantly identifies good moves that lead to victory from a vast collection of match data, and it even judges moves previously considered bad to be good, such as the "3-3 point invasion in the corner." I learned from AI that "the breadth and depth of reading are infinite." I hope you will read (and play Go) extensively from now on!

Fumihiko Yamaguchi

Professor, Faculty of Engineering, Toyota Technological Institute; 1993 Faculty of Science and Technology, 1995 Master of Science and Technology, 2001 PhD in Science and Technology

I encountered programming at the end of elementary school, learned how to engage with computers as an academic discipline at Keio University, and became a university faculty member in the field of information science. By chance, I am now conducting research that applies information science methods to undeciphered languages in archaeology.

My primary research subject is a series of symbols called Rongorongo, carved on wooden boards and sticks on Easter Island.

While it is not wrong to say that I use computers to decipher lost languages, the computer does not do the deciphering for me; rather, I create programs that serve as tools for deciphering. Automating tasks such as classifying shapes to estimate if similar figures are the same character, counting the number of symbols, and checking correspondences with local languages is what can be done using computers. While I believe these tasks lead to deciphering, it is difficult to even estimate the genre of the documents, let alone grasp the intentions of the people who carved these characters.

While feeling the high level of cognitive and recognition abilities that humans exercise before reading a document, I wonder about the kind of people who created these characters.

Shuta Tomisato

Assistant Professor, Department of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Keio University School of Medicine

In collaboration with the Mitsukura Laboratory in the Faculty of Science and Technology, we are developing a device that reads and speaks for people by lip-reading. Using lip-reading technology that applies machine learning, a camera reads lip movements and converts them into language. This device then converts the language into speech using synthetic voice technology, which is also used in television news. By simply moving the mouth, one can produce a voice—in other words, it becomes possible to speak without making a sound.

This mysterious device can restore the voice of those who have lost their vocal cords due to laryngeal cancer or other conditions. If there is a recording from before the vocal cords were lost, it is even possible to reproduce the original voice. In addition to laryngeal cancer, I believe this can help the communication of people with speech and language disorders such as stuttering, selective mutism, vocal disorders, and aphasia.

Just as people with nearsightedness wear glasses and those with hearing loss wear hearing aids, I hope that people with voice and language difficulties will use this lip-reading device. However, the timeline for its completion cannot yet be "read."

Yusuke Iwai

Librarian-Teacher, Keio Yochisha Elementary School

There is a photo book I like called "Reading Time" (On Reading). This is a work by André Kertész, one of the leading photographers of the 20th century, who captured people around the world absorbed in "reading." The original title is "ON READING." In the Japanese version, "Reading Time," a poem titled "Reading" by Shuntaro Tanikawa is featured at the beginning, which starts as follows:

"Black characters are lined up on white paper. It is quiet."

Even when we are alone, we are connected to someone through social media and other means. However, by being alone or in solitude, a person can calm their mind and face themselves. The time spent reading a book is such a time. This is likely the same for children as it is for adults. The children's library at Keio Yochisha Elementary School opened in 1976 with the concept of "a classroom that is not a classroom" and "everyone's plaza." I want to continue preparing the environment as a place where children can slowly face themselves, even in their hectic lives.