In the market, concerns about the bursting of the artificial intelligence (AI) bubble are deep-rooted. On the other hand, it is no exaggeration to say that as the applications for generative AI have expanded from initial text generation and dialogue response to business automation, its progress continues to accelerate.
Behind this rapid AI progress, intellectual property investment growth in major countries has accelerated since around 2010, after decelerating before that. A trigger for the acceleration was the deep learning technology, which appeared in the early 2010s and then led to the fourth industrial revolution. Current generative AI represents an extension of that technology.
Each industrial revolution has boosted the global economy over significant periods as new technologies revolutionized human life. The spread of automobiles and electrical home appliances and the development of communication technologies have led to the reduction of housework, improvement in the quality of life, and the enrichment of leisure time, changing people’s lives dramatically.
In the current industrial revolution, AI has the potential to automate housework, shopping, and family finance management, and it can even serve as the family doctor and tutor and can be expected to revolutionize various fields of life.
Moreover, there is a possibility that a major life revolution could be imminent, as indicated by the fact that the time it takes for technological innovations to revolutionize our lives has shortened gradually since the first industrial revolution.
The first industrial revolution took roughly 50 years for railways to be fully developed after the invention of steam engines. The second took about 30 years to spread electricity. After World War II, the third took little more than 20 years to achieve the spread of electrical home appliances, private cars, and personal computers. While more than 10 years have passed since the emergence of deep learning technology, generative AI has progressed rapidly. Given past industrial revolutions, a profound transformation of daily life (a new life revolution) can be predicted to arrive in a few years.
Concerns about the bursting of the AI bubble are still lingering. At the same time, however, we must be strongly aware that an AI-driven life revolution is coming into sight.
>> Original text in Japanese
* Translated by RIETI.
December 4, 2025 - Published in Nihon Keizai Shimbun's "Crossroads"
