From Information to Recompassion: The Future of Information

Is this the worst timing in the AI hype cycle?

When we talk about the future of AI, the term “hype cycle” often comes up. New technologies rise to a “peak of inflated expectations,” then fall into a “trough of disillusionment,” and eventually settle into practical uses. I sometimes call this wave, half in jest, the “bubble cycle.”

Right now, we may be standing in the most uncomfortable spot—caught between excitement and disappointment. We are dazzled by possibility yet unsettled by doubt. It feels less like smooth progress and more like a historical crossroad.

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1. Between enthusiasm and disillusionment

Expectations for AI have never been higher. Text, images, music, even code—it is treated like a universal tool.

Yet at the same time, its outputs are often called “banal, lacking in humanity.”

Just as people once worried that calculators would erode mental arithmetic, today we fear that AI may weaken our human capacity for expression.

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2. What history shows us

Technological innovation has never completely erased culture.

The printing press did not eliminate handwriting, and word processors did not wipe out calligraphy.

Roles shifted, but human practice continued in other forms.

Steve Jobs famously brought his fascination with calligraphy from college into the Macintosh, implementing the world’s first proportional fonts.

By removing the handicap of “bad handwriting,” computers began to carry human sensibility and became truly personal.

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3. What AI removes

What AI is now erasing is the handicap of “not being able to write well.”

People who had things to say but could not put them into words—long excluded from the arena of recognition—are now finding a voice through AI.

On the other hand, those who relied only on “writing skill” to hold value now see their positions shaken.

Readers, too, benefit. Insights once hidden behind dense, inaccessible writing are being clarified by AI and reaching wider audiences.

But new doubts emerge. When anyone can generate polished text instantly, how do we know whether words are truly alive with feeling—or only appear that way?

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4. Rediscovering Information: Toward a Joho (情報) Society

The English word information derives from Latin informatio, from informare—“to give shape, to form within.” This capacity—to shape raw facts into form—is exactly what AI excels at.

Japanese, however, expresses “information” as 情報 (joho), a compound of 情 (jo, emotion and human sensitivity) and 報 (ho, recompense, report, to repay). Unlike the English idea of mere neutral data, joho carries reciprocity and human connection at its very core.

To capture this nuance, I propose the word “recompassion.”

It fuses compassion (empathy, care) with recompense (to repay, to return).

Here, recompassion is not just data neatly collected by digital systems, but the glimmer of warmth that remains within—something that quietly touches the human heart.

It means “to respond with empathy,” “to repay with feeling.” In a sense, recompassion points to the missing dimension of information: the warmth of reciprocity, the return of humanity into our shared exchanges.

AI can process information, but it cannot create recompassion. Ironically, its spread highlights the uniquely human power to embed emotion and reciprocity into communication.

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5. The value that remains

When proportional fonts erased the handicap of bad handwriting, the focus shifted to structure and ideas.

Likewise, if AI erases the handicap of poor writing, the next question becomes: What do we say, and what do we ask?

The breath of lived experience—travel, meals, love—these cannot be replicated by machines.

It is here that recompassion, uniquely human, will define value in the age ahead.

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6. Aftertaste

AI organizes information. But only humans can add “emotion and response.”

Like ink spreading across paper, human traces will always bleed into the age of AI. Or like warmth lingering in a room long after someone has left, our presence endures in subtle ways.

After the worst timing passes, the value of human expression recompassion will rise and remain.

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Author’s Note: This article was translated and partially drafted with AI assistance; all final decisions were made by the author.