Panasonic resurrects its founder as an AI trained on thousands of recordings

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Panasonic was originally founded in 1918 by Kōnosuke Matsushita under the name Matsushita Electric Housewares Manufacturing Works, and now the founder has been resurrected by the modern-day Panasonic.

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Panasonic collaborated with the University of Tokyo to resurrect Matsushita who died in 1989. Engineers fed 3,000 recordings of Matsushita into an AI, along with any relevant writings, lectures, and interviews. Panasonic's Peace and Happiness through Prosperity (PHP) Institute, a think tank originally founded by Matsushita, plugged all of the relevant data into an AI and trained it to character an AI character that is designed to replicate Matsushita's way of thinking and speaking style.

What's the goal of this? Panasonic wants to use the AI replica of the company's founder as a consultant, querying it in difficult situations to see what Matsushita would do based on the current circumstances. Notably, Matsushita was renowned for his incredible management philosophies in business, and is incredibly celebrated in Japan for the transformation of what was once a business that sold lamps into what Panasonic is today.

"We believe it is important for our employees to correctly understand the management philosophy of our founder, Kōnosuke Matsushita, on which our Basic Management Policy is based, and to pass it on through the ages," explained Panasonic

"The development of generative AI technology provides a new approach to the verification of traditional research questions, and we hope that it will enable us to take on previously impossible interdisciplinary research using innovative methods," wrote Panasonic

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