Satoshi Takamatsu

Satoshi Takamatsu (高松 聡, Takamatsu Satoshi; born March 5, 1963) is a Japanese artist, creative director, photographer, and private astronaut candidate. He is the founder of WE, an art project centered on a planned long-duration mission to the International Space Station (ISS) to capture ultra-high-resolution imagery of Earth for immersive public exhibition. Takamatsu has described the project as an attempt to reproduce aspects of the Overview Effect for people on the ground, with the aim of encouraging greater awareness of peace, the environment, and, in his own writings, the human values that should guide the development of advanced artificial intelligence.

Before founding WE, Takamatsu had a three-decade career in advertising. He is known for leading the creation of the world's first television commercial filmed aboard the International Space Station (2001), organizing the first FIFA-endorsed public viewing event during the 2002 FIFA World Cup, He completed eight months of cosmonaut training at Star City, Russia, in 2015, and has written that during his fourth year he learned that his eyesight did not meet the requirements for astronaut selection. During his two decades at the company, he became known for campaigns involving space and large-scale public events. Casa BRUTUS described the exhibition as presenting "the lost dream and the discovered dream" of a man who had pursued space, After Brightman withdrew from the mission, Takamatsu did not take the September 2015 flight, stating that the art projects he had planned to carry out in space were not yet ready. His seat was subsequently taken by Aidyn Aimbetov. Bijutsu Techo reported that the project's visual target is above 60 pixels per degree (PPD), a benchmark often associated with conventional 20/20 visual acuity, and that the planned WE pavilion would feature a display approximately 100 metres wide for 48K-equivalent projection.

The WE Project envisions dedicated museum spaces in which this imagery would be displayed in immersive environments designed to evoke the Overview Effect in visitors.

Views on AI alignment

In essays and public statements, Takamatsu has described the WE Project as relevant not only to peace and environmental awareness but also to AI alignment. He has argued that the project's Earth-viewing experience may help foreground the kinds of human values needed in an age of increasingly capable artificial intelligence, and that imagery of Earth and audience responses to it may have educational value for thinking about future human–AI coexistence.