It’s not entirely true that AI is more popular in Japan.

This doesn’t really match my experience living here. Everywhere seems to be using it and I’ve not seen any major pushback. Signs in train stations, city/municipal offices, and much more. It’s replacing translators at tons of companies (including mine) even though it is less accurate than human translators. The dev jobs are all starting to require AI use and even AI agent experience; not as much as I see in other countries, but it’s increasing. People talk about asking AI for all kinds of things when I’m out in the world.

Japan has a worker shortage. This is seen by many, along with robotics, as filling positions that need filling (or at least allowing people to devote more time to them if their other duties take less time now with AI). A large amount of xenophobic to outright racist people are also pleased by this; some on the right see this as a benefit because they think they don’t need those pesky foreign workers anymore.