Source: The Register
Japan's Digital Transformation Minister is removing individual consent as a friction point in AI training, making personal data the default fuel for model development rather than an opt-in resource. This is regulatory arbitrage—a bet that loosening privacy protections will attract AI companies away from the EU's GDPR constraints and the US's emerging state-level frameworks, positioning Japan as the path-of-least-resistance jurisdiction. The move exposes a political choice between privacy as a consumer right and AI as a national economic imperative. Japan has chosen the latter, betting that speed to deployment matters more than the precedent it sets.