This study confirms the usefulness of the text mining software, which enables the utilization of a massive amount of text data as a new social science tool alternative. It is an alternative for the existing social survey methods used for forecasting the “future society.” It also reports confirmation that the trial use of the method is applicable to a certain degree. In this study, “Kyomukairō (The Corridor of Emptiness)” a novel by Sakyo Komatsu was used for the text mining. The study chose this novel because it is based on solid scientific facts, and also because “AI” and “Man-Machine Interaction”, both frequently featured throughout the novel, are assumed to have a defining impact on our future society. Using keywords related to these two technologies as the core, the study mined the work and extracted keywords indicating the social statuses of these technologies and their involvement in people's lives in the novel's imaginary society and attempted to visualize how our “future society” would look like through brainstorming sessions. While the result of this single study cannot be claimed sufficient in terms of presenting an image of the “future society”, it nevertheless has demonstrated the appropriateness and efficiency of text mining as a study method.
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