The aspirational visions of Society 5.0 coined by many nations around 2015/16 have now been eclipsed by technological progress and world events including another European war, global warming, climate change and resource shortages. In this new context, the published 5.0 documents now seem naive and simplistic, high on aspiration, and very short on ‘the how’. The stark reality is that the present situation has been induced by our species and our inability to understand and cope with complexity.
“There are no simple solutions to complex problems”
What is now clear is that our route to survival and Society 5.0 will be born of Industry 4.0/5.0 and a symbiosis between Mother Nature, Machines, and Mankind. Today we consume and destroy near 50% more resources than the planet might reasonably support, and merely improving the efficiency of all our processes and what we do will only delay the end point. And so I4.0 is founded on new materials and new processes that are far less damaging, inherently sustainable, and most importantly, readily dispensable across the planet.
“Reversing global warming will not see a climatic reversal to some previously stable state”
In this presentation, we start with the nature of climate change, move on to the technology changes that might save the day, the impact of Industry 4.0/5.0, and then postulate what Society 5.0 might actually look like.