DESRIST2023 | University of Pretoria

Humanity has experienced unprecedented technological developments during the past few decades. Few can argue that the lives we live and the societies we are part of are undergoing vast, often unexpected adjustments and transformation. More voices are requesting a rethink of the relationship we – as humans – have with technology in this new world.

Society 5.0 is the term that has emerged to describe the new society that is the result of “… the high degree of merging between cyberspace and physical space”, where we “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 concept was first introduced by the Japanese government in 2015 in its Fifth Science and Technology Plan.

The question that arises is: What will be different in Society 5.0? Currently, we live…