by Syed Nazakat
A Tokyo taxi encounter and global AI dialogues reveal shifting human connections, societal pressures, and the evolving relationship between technology, trust, and the future of information systems
I have always found flight time to be unexpectedly valuable. It’s one of the few stretches where I can pause, either sketch some ideas, finish some emails, read a book, or lose myself in a film.
On a recent flight from Delhi to Tokyo, I watched Tokyo Taxi, a restrained Japanese drama set largely inside a moving cab. It brings together Koji Usami, a young driver under financial strain, and Sumire Takano, an elderly woman on her way to a nursing home in Hayama.
The journey gradually opens into something more reflective. Sumire speaks of an abusive husband, raising a child alone, and anger that hardened into a decision she could not undo, revenge against her husband, prison, and the long, uncertain road back.
And yet, what lingers is not the rupture, but the rebuilding. She travels to America, learns the art of manicure, and returns to Japan to build a successful business. Usami is shown mostly listening. Then, almost reluctantly, he begins to speak too—about his daily financial struggles, debt, and the pressure of securing his daughter’s school admission and future, as well as the invisible burdens of middle-class life that rarely find expression.
What begins as a routine taxi ride becomes a quiet exploration of human connection, two lives intersecting briefly, each carrying burdens that feel both deeply personal and strangely universal.
Watching it at 30,000 feet, suspended between two cities, it felt less like a film and more like an encounter, an intimate reminder that beneath the order and restraint often associated with cities like Tokyo lies a dense inner world of loneliness, endurance, and quiet resilience.
In that sense, the film gestures toward deeper undercurrents in Japanese society. Japan is often seen as orderly, prosperous, and happy—but beneath that surface run quieter, less visible daily struggles.
Japan has one of the most extraordinary resilience stories in human history. In 1945, after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, Japan was broken and devastated. But it chose discipline over despair—investing in people, education, precision, and purpose. And in a generation, it didn’t just rebuild—it reimagined itself as a global economic powerhouse.
Yet alongside that success is a quieter story: of financial fragility, uncertain futures for the young, and an ageing society where many navigate loneliness. There is also the rhythm of daily work—long hours, unspoken overtime, and a deep commitment to craft and responsibility. Precision over improvisation is not just discipline in Japan; it is what makes systems reliable, cities function, and everyday life feel seamless, even to the point where a train driver may bow and apologise for a delay of just two minutes.
We were in Japan for a pan-Asia cyber safety dialogue we’re building with Google—the Tokyo edition was supported by Konrad Adenauer Stiftung and the Japan Trust & Safety Association (JTSA). In the room were technologists, banking and cybersecurity experts, and government representatives, including officials from Japan’s Internet Crime Complaint Centre. It was a conversation about a different kind of journey—one defined by the speed of artificial intelligence and digital safety.
AI is reshaping the digital world, creating, scaling, and connecting in ways we’ve never seen before. But it also introduces new risks: impersonation, fraud, and deepfakes, leaving almost everyone vulnerable. Fraud in Japan, like elsewhere in Asia, has surged to unprecedented levels, reflecting the growing sophistication of online scam tactics. According to The Japan Times, combined losses from special fraud, romance scams, and social media–driven investment schemes reached a record ¥324.11 billion in 2025, roughly $2.2 billion USD.
Over three days in Tokyo, participants shared insights, what works, what fails when it comes to cybersecurity and online financial fraud, and what often goes unspoken in conversations on digital security and safety. It was a reminder that the risks are evolving, but so must our collective understanding. We’re now carrying this dialogue forward to Seoul, the capital of South Korea. If you’re based there, we’d be glad to have you join the conversation. I’ll share more details soon.
Meanwhile, back home in India, our team at DataLEADS hosted the AI Media Conference in collaboration with the UK government, set against a quieter but no less consequential shift. The relationship between publishers and their audiences is being steadily, almost imperceptibly, rewritten.
For thousands of years, oral storytelling was how societies made sense of the world, knowledge passed from voice to voice, shaped by memory, emotion, and trust. Then, in the fifteenth century, German inventor Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press changed everything. Newspapers followed, gradually replacing and in many ways diminishing oral traditions by standardising information and shifting storytelling from a lived, shared experience to a fixed, one-way form of communication. Modern publishing emerged from that moment, along with a more direct, durable relationship between those who produced information and those who consumed it, a relationship that, for centuries, remained relatively intact.
That simplicity is now disappearing. Platforms, social media, search engines, and aggregators have inserted themselves between publishers and audiences, mediating discovery, distribution, and monetisation. Control over attention has gradually moved away from creators toward algorithms.
Now, platforms increasingly decide what people see, often reinforcing existing beliefs. At the same time, platforms and AI tools are pulling audiences away from publishers by summarising their work, even as AI companies train on news content, often without compensating those who create it. The relationship between creator and audience is becoming more abstract, raising new questions about authorship, trust, value—and, more importantly, the future of information pathways.
At the AI Media Conference, Mitali Mukherjee from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism shared a telling insight: people still trust news brands—but younger audiences are already turning to AI. Veteran journalist and Press Trust of India CEO Vijay Joshi reminded us that every era has its disruption. In the 1850s, German innovator Paul Julius Reuter saw a gap, literally. The telegraph line between Aachen and Brussels wasn’t complete. Information moved slowly, by rail, by courier. So he did something audacious: he used pigeons. They flew faster than trains. They carried financial news ahead of everyone else.
At the conference, it was fascinating to witness the experiments already unfolding across Indian newsrooms as they explore technology and AI—from leveraging satellite data for reporting, to crunching official data in national newspapers, to India’s largest wire agency integrating AI into news production, to AI news avatars, and to a video AI startup creating new forms of engagement and revenue—the landscape is alive with innovation. One of the most compelling panels convened experts from health, fintech, cybersecurity, and supply chain sectors to examine what journalism can learn from other industries in the age of AI. There was also growing discussion around the latest wave in artificial intelligence: so-called AI agents—tools designed not just to assist users, but to act on their behalf.
From a quiet taxi ride in Tokyo to high-stakes conversations about AI, trust, and the future of news, one thing becomes apparent: we are all in the midst of profound change. Whether building newsrooms, devising new tools, or experimenting with revenue models, we need to think in systems—to understand the larger information ecosystem—and remain agile enough to navigate uncertainty. In a world accelerating faster than ever, the true test lies in knowing what not to do as much as what to do—then resetting, adapting, and translating strategy into action.
(Author is CEO and Founder of DataLeads. Ideas are personal.)
