Mizuho Financial Group Inc is giving all of its Japan bank employees access to Microsoft Corp’s Azure OpenAI service this week, making it one of the country’s first financial firms to adopt the potentially transformative generative artificial intelligence (AI) technology.
The banking giant plans to allow 45,000 workers at its core lending units in the country to test out the service, said Toshitake Ushiwatari, general manager of Mizuho’s digital planning department.
Already, managers and rank-and-file employees at Japan’s third-largest bank are submitting dozens of pitches for ways to harness the technology even before the software is installed.
Photo: Bloomberg
There are many staff who are embracing ChatGPT in their private lives, Ushiwatari said in an interview.
“It’s like poking a beehive,” he said, referring to the enthusiastic response the firm’s move has sparked.
“They think it will completely reset the world, triggering disruptive innovation,” he added.
The developments at Mizuho and its peers come as Wall Street grapples with the unfolding AI revolution and its effects.
Within global banks, some have clamped down on ChatGPT for employees, even as they use AI for business purposes such as scanning wealthy client portfolios and screening for potential defaulters. Japanese financial firms, by contrast, appear to be adopting a more permissive stance internally.
Ushiwatari’s team plans to hold a so-called “ideathon” within the firm in Japan as early as next month, and is brainstorming ways to encourage employees to experiment with the technology.
The tool would be introduced to its brokerage unit in the country next month, he said.
So far, one of the ideas being floated is to use generative AI — in which AI models analyze volumes of data and use them to generate new images, texts, audio and video — as a one-stop reference point for the bank’s vast trove of internal rules, processes and other manuals.
Ushiwatari said he is well aware of the risks of generative AI, and the bank is introducing guidelines when it rolls out the technology to employees, such as information management, intellectual property and ethics.
Still, generative AI is something that would lift society and the bank cannot shy away from, Ushiwatari said.
“This is something we have to do, otherwise, we get left behind,” he said.
Anna Bhobho, a 31-year-old housewife from rural Zimbabwe, was once a silent observer in her home, excluded from financial and family decisionmaking in the deeply patriarchal society. Today, she is a driver of change in her village, thanks to an electric tricycle she owns. In many parts of rural sub-Saharan Africa, women have long been excluded from mainstream economic activities such as operating public transportation. However, three-wheelers powered by green energy are reversing that trend, offering financial opportunities and a newfound sense of importance. “My husband now looks up to me to take care of a large chunk of expenses,
SECTOR LEADER: TSMC can increase capacity by as much as 20 percent or more in the advanced node part of the foundry market by 2030, an analyst said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to lead its peers in the advanced 2-nanometer process technology, despite competition from Samsung Electronics Co and Intel Corp, TrendForce Corp analyst Joanne Chiao (喬安) said. TSMC’s sophisticated products and its large production scale are expected to allow the company to continue dominating the global 2-nanometer process market this year, Chiao said. The world’s largest contract chipmaker is scheduled to begin mass production of chips made on the 2-nanometer process in its Hsinchu fab in the second half of this year. It would also hold a ceremony on Monday next week to
TECH CLUSTER: The US company’s new office is in the Shalun Smart Green Energy Science City, a new AI industry base and cybersecurity hub in southern Taiwan US chip designer Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) yesterday launched an office in Tainan’s Gueiren District (歸仁), marking a significant milestone in the development of southern Taiwan’s artificial intelligence (AI) industry, the Tainan City Government said in a statement. AMD Taiwan general manager Vincent Chern (陳民皓) presided over the opening ceremony for the company’s new office at the Shalun Smart Green Energy Science City (沙崙智慧綠能科學城), a new AI industry base and cybersecurity hub in southern Taiwan. Facilities in the new office include an information processing center, and a research and development (R&D) center, the Tainan Economic Development Bureau said. The Ministry
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
RSS