Who is Hiroki Azuma?

A Japanese philosopher and critic, and founder of the publisher Genron. He wrote *General Will 2.0* (2011), which envisioned gathering the popular will through the internet, and later warned against hopes that AI could automate politics. He supports Plurality while asking about its tension with politics.

When Plurality and broad listening come up in Japan, one name is often mentioned alongside them. In 2011 he sketched a plan to rebuild democracy with the power of the internet, and since then he has warned against expecting too much of AI.

In short

Hiroki Azuma (東浩紀) is a Japanese philosopher and critic, and the founder of the publisher Genron [1]. In his 2011 book 一般意志2.0 (General Will 2.0), he set out a vision of gathering and processing the traces people (unintentionally) leave on the internet, and building the popular will out of them [2]. Later he moved to the side that criticizes the hope that AI can automate politics (what Azuma calls "artificial intelligence democracy") [3].

Connection to Plurality

Influence on Takahiro Anno. An event page from Genron Café (September 2024) introduces Takahiro Anno as a reader of Azuma, and says that Anno's way of campaigning shows the influence of General Will 2.0 and 訂正可能性の哲学 (The Philosophy of Correctability) [4].

"What is Plurality?" In June 2025, he held a three-way conversation with Anno and Ken Suzuki at Genron Café [5].

A dialogue with Audrey Tang. In March 2026 he talked with Audrey Tang in a public dialogue at ZEN University. Azuma offered a keyword from his book: "I call it 'correctability.'" (being able to put things right afterward). Tang replied: "In the book Glen and I co-wrote, we said that process must be inspectable, contestable, and revisable. Or as Mr. Azuma might put it: it must possess correctability." [6]

Main ideas

General Will 2.0. A vision of rebuilding the philosopher Rousseau's "general will" (the will of society as a whole) from the unconscious data the internet gathers [2]. → General Will 2.0

Wariness of "artificial intelligence democracy". In a 2024 piece for Wedge, Azuma wrote that he supports bringing AI into public administration, but called the hope of semi-automating politics with AI "artificial intelligence democracy", and described it as a dangerous idea that turns attention away from the real problems of human society. He also looked back on a history in which hopes that blogs and social media would strengthen democracy were disappointed [3]. In a 2023 interview, too, he said that the very idea that capturing people's desires with AI would produce a stable society is a fiction [7].

A government that listens too much. In a 2020 column in AERA (a review of the sociologist Ryosuke Nishida's book コロナ危機の社会学 (The Sociology of the COVID Crisis)), he took up the book's point that the confusion of the pandemic had produced governments that listen too closely to online public opinion. How to control such governments, he argued, would become important all over the world [8]. It is a point worth reading alongside broad listening, which listens to many voices.

What is debated

The tension between Plurality and politics. In the dialogue with Tang, Azuma said, "I'm absolutely in favor of Plurality," but cited the legal philosopher Carl Schmitt's view that the essence of politics is the distinction between friend and enemy. He said that there is a tension in principle between Plurality, which avoids splitting the world in two, and politics, and that this is "exactly the dilemma Team Mirai — or Mr. Anno — is facing right now" [6]. → Team Mirai
Criticism of a metaphor in the dialogue. A quantum-physics metaphor used in the same dialogue was later criticized in an essay on note [9].
His view of Team Mirai. In an interview with Asahi Shimbun Digital (May 2026), Azuma saw Team Mirai's gains in the House of Representatives election as the party catching voters after the opposition parties defeated themselves. He said he holds hopes for it, but also sees limits [10].

Sources

English Wikipedia, "Hiroki Azuma" — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroki_Azuma ［CC BY-SA 4.0］
Penguin Random House, "General Will 2.0" (publisher's description of the English translation) — https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/222504/general-will-20-by-hiroki-azuma/
Hiroki Azuma, "AIの力で民主主義はアップデートできるのか？" (Wedge, 2024-10-30, in Japanese) — https://wedge.ismedia.jp/articles/-/35528
Genron Café event page (2024-09-18, in Japanese) — https://genron-cafe.jp/event/20240918/
Genron Café, "プルラリティとはなにか" (2025-06-26, in Japanese) — https://genron-cafe.jp/event/20250626/
"A Dialogue with Hiroki Azuma" (2026-03-15) — https://archive.tw/2026-03-15-a-dialogue-with-hiroki-azuma ［CC0］
Ledge.ai, interview with Hiroki Azuma, vol. 1 (2023-10-22, in Japanese) — https://ledge.ai/articles/azuma-hiroki-series-1
AERA, column by Hiroki Azuma (2020-07-16, in Japanese) — https://dot.asahi.com/articles/-/87659
Essay on note criticizing the quantum-physics metaphor (in Japanese) — https://note.com/reading_monkey/n/n97b65c6a9d3b
Asahi Shimbun Digital, interview with Hiroki Azuma (2026-05-21, in Japanese) — https://www.asahi.com/articles/ASV5N2691V5NUPQJ004M.html

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