Who Will Be the Members of Society 5.0? Towards an Anthropology of Technologically Posthumanized Future Societies

Abstract

The Government of Japan’s “Society 5.0” initiative aims to create a cyber-physical society in which (among other things) citizens’ daily lives will be enhanced through increasingly close collaboration with artificially intelligent systems. However, an apparent paradox lies at the heart of efforts to create a more “human-centered” society in which human beings will live alongside a proliferating array of increasingly autonomous social robots and embodied AI. This study seeks to investigate the presumed human-centeredness of Society 5.0 by comparing its makeup with that of earlier societies. By distinguishing “technological” and “non-technological” processes of posthumanization and applying a phenomenological anthropological model, this study demonstrates: (1) how the diverse types of human and non-human members expected to participate in Society 5.0 differ qualitatively from one another; (2) how the dynamics that will shape the membership of Society 5.0 can be conceptualized; and (3) how the anticipated membership of Society 5.0 differs from that of Societies 1.0 through 4.0. This study describes six categories of prospective human and non-human members of Society 5.0 and shows that all six have analogues in earlier societies, which suggests that social scientific analysis of past societies may shed unexpected light on the nature of Society 5.0.

Disaster and Climate Change Issues in Japan’s Society 5.0—A Discussion

“…A tangible step towards inclusion could be reaching out to community-based organizations and promoting publicly available platforms for discussion and opinion sharing early on in the process. It is very important to point out that teaching new skills and using innovative technologies might prove successful in controlled environments in companies or test city areas where employees are monitored and performing defined tasks but it is a completely different matter to incorporate intelligent technology and tools in the everyday lives of millions of residents, and especially in the lives of the groups that Society 5.0 aims to include (children, women out of the workforce, the elderly, people with disabilities), even after conducting workshops and courses [41]. The new policies suggest the inclusion of relevant activities from the beginning of education but would that mean that several generations will have to suffer the brunt of adapting to the rapid changes, trapped in the trial and error process?…”

The Role of Open Innovation and Value Co-creation in the Challenging Transition from Industry 4.0 to Society 5.0: Toward a Theoretical Framework

“…However, various scholars have recently raised some concerns about individuals in Society 5.0, such as Gladden [53], who identified six different types of participants, namely, "natural, biological human beings," "artificially augmented human beings," "metahuman beings," "epihuman beings," "parabeing humans," and "nonhuman beings," all of which are to be involved in the future Society 5.0, though not all of them have been considered real individuals as part of society until now, especially when considering the last two above-mentioned categories. More extremely in this sense is the claim of Nurullin [54], who defines Society 5.0 as a "self-devouring system."…”

Sustainable and Dynamic Competitiveness Towards Technological Leadership of Industry 4.0: Implications for East African Community

“…The society 5.0 is not only for prosperity of Japan but also countries worldwide [19]. In addition, Society 5.0 aims to create a cyber-physical society in which citizens' daily lives will be enhanced through increasingly close collaboration with artificially intelligent systems forming a super smart cyber physical system [181,182]. The Society 5.0 adverts to the new monetary society following the seeker gatherer (Society 1.0), peaceful agrarian (Society 2.0), modern social order (Society 3.0), and data social orders (Society 4.0) [180].…”