I took this after school sports day, hands still red from playing ‘parent tug of war’, because they are constantly short of people.

People imagine the future looks like Blade Runner—neon, rain, replicants.

But I think it looks more like this. A rice harvester crawling through a Kyushu field, technically a form of AI, doing its job without the drama.

We still need rice; that hasn’t changed in a thousand years.

What’s changed is that machines now shoulder the back-breaking part, letting people live and age with a little more dignity.

Because we can’t prompt and materialise rice.