AI’s threat gives Japan a second chance to do right by the workers propping up the $21 billion industry. Tokyo must move fast to strengthen labour rights, protect IP, and demand transparency
By Catherine Thorbecke
When a United Nations report warned that Japan’s storied animation sector was in danger of potential collapse, you’d be forgiven for thinking the cause was the rise of artificial intelligence.
It was not. Low pay, excessive working hours and weak protections for individuals’ intellectual property rights had created “an environment ripe for exploitation,” the UN human rights body said last year. If the outlook was grim then, the proliferation of AI could prove existential.
Tokyo owes more to these artists. Even as Japan’s industrial might slipped during the so-called “lost decades,” their imagination and soul propelled the nation’s soft power and global influence. Dragon Ball, Pokemon and Studio Ghibli churned out internationally beloved storylines and characters. The government was arguably slow to appreciate or monetize this, but has since spent years trying to turn the nation’s creative works into a leading export — as powerful as any car or chip.
AI’s threat gives Japan a second chance to do right by the workers propping up the $21 billion industry. Tokyo must move fast to strengthen labour rights, protect IP, demand transparency and fairly compensate artists, or risk letting Silicon Valley write the rules as it goes.
The recent release of OpenAI’s Sora 2 video creator was the latest wake-up call. Users of the TikTok clone began quickly turning a beloved catalogue of anime characters into AI slop. Akihisa Shiozaki, a Lower House lawmaker, said in a commentary that he was especially alarmed to see high-quality generations of Japanese icons — while Western figures like Mickey Mouse or Superman were conspicuously absent. The government expressed its concerns to OpenAI, he said, apparently prompting Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman to announce an update that gives rightsholders “more granular control,” and praising the nation’s “remarkable creative output.” Altman said they hoped to start a revenue sharing plan “soon.”
OpenAI’s swift response is a good first step. But tech giants should also pay for the creativity they’ve already exploited. While I was scrolling Sora 2 a few days ago, clips featuring Naruto, Doraemon, Totoro, and many other anime favorites were abundant, even if my brief attempts to create new videos with some of them were refused. It’s more than apparent that Japan’s cultural crown jewels were used to train the video generator that has the potential to be a big moneymaker for the tech giant.
The reach of Japan’s creative industry gives it an obligation to lead this global fight for the future of arts in the AI era. It can start by demanding transparency. Most leading tech companies have stopped sharing the details of the data used to train their models. But the public deserves to know what goes into these systems — not just so rightsholders are aware if their work was used, but so researchers and policymakers can better understand how these tools shape the world around us.
And as my colleague Dave Lee has written, companies pay for the chips that their machines need, they pay for the power to run them, and for the labour of their engineers, “So why not pay for the work of human creators, without whom today’s AI models wouldn’t be worth a penny?” Even amid periods of massive technological transformation, he notes, there are precedents for how to renumerate creatives.
It’s also clear that even before the rise of AI, Japan’s anime industry was overdue for a labour reckoning. Despite a boom globally, many creatives are living in poverty. Tokyo can fix this by empowering unions in a sector long resistant to organizing. This would not only help improve conditions, but offer the artists a fighting chance to have a say in how their work is used by AI, and how the technology can be deployed within their industry.
The 2023 Hollywood writers’ strike exposed how critical organised labour is for creative sectors, and offers a precedent: Those employed in the field won the right to decide for themselves how and when AI is used, while still ensuring they will be compensated either way. Automation can threaten artists livelihoods or be used responsibly to help fill gaping labour shortages. Collective bargaining agreements give workers a say in how this process ultimately unfolds.
In a press conference last month, a lawmaker overseeing intellectual property strategy called anime and manga “irreplaceable treasures of our country.” AI tools are now capable of replicating, and even replacing, something that has made Japan a cultural powerhouse. The window for Tokyo to act is closing fast.
(Disclaimer: This is a Bloomberg Opinion piece, and these are the personal opinions of the writer.)
