Author: Japan Reacts Editorial

Chunichi Dragons pitcher Akira Neo took the mound as the third pitcher in a farm-league (minor-league) official game against Kufu Hayate Ventures Shizuoka at Nagoya Stadium on September 19, and got hit hard, allowing 5 hits and 5 runs in just 1 inning. He came in as relief in the 7th inning with an 11-3, eight-run lead, but an infield hit to the leadoff batter combined with his own throwing error put a runner on second with no outs, and a string of hits let in a run. He also failed to record a single out while allowing 7 runs in a Farm-league game against DeNA back on August 11, and the fact that this kind of meltdown recurred in such a short span became a hot topic. On 5ch, comments split between questioning why he’s still being used as a pitcher and lamenting the waste of his background as a first-round pick multiple teams once fought over.

In the Farm-league game against DeNA on August 11, he failed to record even a single out while allowing 7 runs

Chunichi Dragons pitcher Akira Neo got hit hard again. He took the mound as the third pitcher in the Farm League game against Kufu Hayate Ventures Shizuoka held at Nagoya Stadium on September 19. After allowing 5 hits and 5 runs in a single inning, fans reacted with comments like “a cruel reality” and “that’s rough, even against Hayate.”

He entered in the 7th inning with the Dragons leading 11-3. He gave up a comebacker infield hit to the leadoff batter, and his own throwing error to first base compounded the trouble, immediately putting a runner on second with no outs. A single up the middle then loaded first and third. He got the next batter out on a foul fly to third for the first out, but then allowed an RBI single to left to give up a run.

Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here

*This article is compiled as excerpts and a summary from the 5ch (Geinou/Sports News+) thread “[Baseball] Chunichi Dragons’ Akira Neo: “I’m done”… Blows up again in the minors, 5 runs in 1 inning vs. Hayate: “A cruel reality,” “It’s getting hard to watch” [Ailuropoda melanoleuca★].”

In August, a post on Hatena Anonymous Diary went viral on social media: after the author streamlined their own work using AI and shared the method internally, they just ended up with more work filling the freed-up hours — so nothing actually got easier. Companies like DeNA have cut workloads by as much as 90% in some cases, but that doesn’t automatically translate into “going home early.” On 5ch, comments ranged from sympathetic (“this is SO typically Japanese-company”) to frustration at a corporate structure where productivity gains never show up in wages or staffing, alongside counterarguments from people who say using freed-up time within work hours for other tasks is only natural. The discussion spread from there.

On August 3, a post titled “The story of how streamlining my job with AI somehow only increased my workload” appeared on Hatena Anonymous Diary and went viral on social media. The poster — described by coworkers as a hard worker — had, with good intentions, tested out ways to use AI and shared them with the company. But once an 8-hour task got compressed to 4 hours, that task was thereafter simply treated as “a 4-hour job,” and the remaining 4 hours got filled with something else.

In the end, the poster writes, it wasn’t a case of “someone who used to work 8 hours can now go home after 4 hours thanks to AI” — it was just “someone who used to finish 1 task in 8 hours now finishes 2 tasks in 8 hours.” The person who shared the technique ended up fielding all the explanations, training, and follow-up questions, with no change in pay. The poster called themselves an “inconvenient Santa Claus.”

Reactions were split between people who found it painfully relatable (“SO typically Japanese-company”) and skeptics who suspected it was a fabricated story written by AI. But the tendency for time saved to simply get reallocated to more work — rather than translating directly into shorter working hours — also shows up in survey data. So who’s actually benefiting from the time AI frees up, and for what?

Source: itmedia.co.jp / Original article here

*This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (News Express+) thread “Management: “Use AI to take it easy and go home early” → Employees: “We’re not going home” — Even DeNA, which cut workloads by up to 90%, is grappling with the wall of AI efficiency.”