Why is this work relevant for Creative Data?

The skill of judging the quality of tuna, which had been kept in a closed environment, was passed on through the creative use of "tail section" data, contributing to solving the problem of the succession of the expert connoisseurs. Furthermore, we overcame the emergency situation in which tuna connoisseurship, which had been supported by advanced human technology, was no longer possible due to COVID-19 by sending the data from the AI application. In this way, we have succeeded in overcoming the global crisis caused by the pandemic.

Background

Tuna―one of the ocean’s greatest treasures. The Tokyo market is a global center for marine products, where tuna examiners judge the quality of fish with their eyes. However, due to a shrinking fisheries industry and Tokyo’s rapidly aging population, the number of craftsmen has fallen to less than half of the industry’s golden age. In the near future, it’s feared that there will be no successors to carry on the occupation. Sojitz is a trading company that handles tuna from fishing grounds all over the world, and is committed to managing the quality of its own tuna by unifying standards by dispatching craftsmen around the world. To keep delivering a high standard of tuna in a future when tuna examiners may not be around, the company took the challenge of creating something that could carry on the legacy of this trade by developing a new system using AI.

Describe the Creative idea / data solution (20% of vote)

We developed TUNA SCOPE, the world's first AI capable of discerning tuna quality with the eye of a skilled Japanese artisan. Using the peculiarities of deep learning, the AI was able to establish its own methodology for making judgments that had been considered 'tacit knowledge' based on human intuition and experience, becoming the world's first AI to successfully acquire a professional skill. The resulting AI is able to match the quality judgments of skilled artisans in over 90 percent of cases, and can be deployed round-the-clock, simultaneously, anywhere in the world.

Describe the data driven strategy (30% of vote)

Kura Sushi is among Japan’s largest sellers of tuna by volume. To procure stock, the sushi chain’s skilled artisans visited various regions in Japan and abroad to directly evaluate the quality of tuna for purchase, using judgment cultivated through years of experience. However, travel restrictions imposed during the pandemic made it impossible for artisans to evaluate and purchase on-site as they had before. We took on the challenge of ‘AI-driven purchasing’, a new initiative that overturned conventions in the fishing industry. We sent the AI data of TUNA SCOPE to Dalian, China, and conducted the world's first "remote purchase by AI" on behalf of the artisans. The AI, which has mastered the skills of the artisans, has succeeded in purchasing hundreds of tons of tuna at a much faster pace than before, without the need for the artisans to travel in the middle of the COVID-19 disaster.

Describe the creative use of data, or how the data enhanced the creative output (20% of vote)

The technology for judging the quality of tuna was tacit knowledge possessed only by a limited number of artisans. We have converted this technology into data, and built a system in which data on the results of quality judgments by artisans at fishing grounds around Japan is collected, and the AI continues to evolve on a daily basis. The data is delivered daily from Toyosu, Yaizu, Misaki and other major fishing grounds in Japan. The data-driven creativity achieved a digital transformation of advanced wisdom that had been dependent on humans, and contributed to solving the problem of succession of artisans as well as the emergency situation of tuna buying crisis caused by COVID-19.

List the data driven results (30% of vote)

In 2020, AI purchasing by TUNA SCOPE was announced to the press as a "new purchasing style" to overcome the COVID-19 crisis. The tuna that AI judged to be the most delicious was newly commercialized as "AI TUNA," sold at Kura-Sushi restaurants nationwide, and a launch campaign including TV-commercials was launched. Sales are still ongoing as of 2021. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, AI Tuna achieved three times the forecast sales. TUNA SCOPE has been adopted as a promotion program supported by the government of Japan, and continued until 2021. In the same year, AI Tuna was launched in two cities in China, Shenzhen and Guangzhou, and continues to expand its global reach. As of 2021, AI TUNA is sold in 479 stores in four countries (China, New York, Singapore and Japan). This project has been covered by more than 1,500 media outlets in 57 countries around the world.