What Is Society 5.0?

Abstract

This chapter elaborates on the general thought process behind Society 5.0 and lists the relevant nomenclature. As per the Japanese government literature, Society 5.0 should be one that, “through the high degree of merging between cyberspace and physical space, will be able to balance economic advancement with the resolution of social problems by providing goods and services that granularly address manifold latent needs regardless of locale, age, sex, or language.” The vision of Society 5.0 requires us to reframe two kinds of relationships: the relationship between technology and society and the technology-mediated relationship between individuals and society. With this perspective, the introductory chapter provides an overview of the concept of Society 5.0. It clarifies the differences between the society today and Society 5.0. It proposes how we approach Society 5.0 in this book. Sections 1.1 – 1.4 of this chapter describe what is Society 5.0. In particular, the focus is on the following key concepts which are parallel aspects of the society: “a human-centered society,” “merging cyberspace with physical space,” “a knowledge-intensive society,” and “a data-driven society.” Understanding these four concepts enables us to develop the approach required to make Society 5.0 a reality. In Sect. 1.5 , we clarify the conceptual differences between Society 5.0 and Germany’s Industrie 4.0, which is one of the leading visions of revolutionizing the industry through IT integration. Society 5.0 seeks to revolutionize not only the industry through IT integration but also the living spaces and habits of the public.

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