We live in an era of unprecedented change.

We’re more connected, more informed, and therefore more inundated with messages. In fact, we have so much messaging, it’s difficult to differentiate fact from fiction, real from fake. It’s even challenging to guide our children, who are more informed, more connected than we were in adolescence. 

And then there’s the added challenge: This rapid connection makes time seem to move much faster. 

We cannot rely on our current frame of reference to make sense of the world of tomorrow. To approach a hyper-connected, fast-moving world, we need to think differently about how we approach everything we do.

How did we get here?

We’ve heard a lot about Industry 4.0 in the last decade and many organisations are still grappling with the concept and trying to figure out what it means for their business. But it’s time to look beyond this.

The term Society 5.0 emerged over the last few years from Japan. It refers to how society has moved through four distinct phases – hunter, agricultural, industrial, information – and has now arrived at a fifth stage. 

We no longer have to try and collect more information; we now must to make sense of the massive volume of information we have. That’s what it means to be an intelligent society. That’s Society 5.0.

But to understand the challenges of Society 5.0, first we need to understand the formative trends which give it context:

Tech-driven connection means better decision-making

A hyper-connected society can make vital decisions with more confidence, including: 

·     Cars that park themselves and advise us.

·     Refrigerators that indicate which foods are freshest.

·     Watches that tell us how hydrated we are.

·     Factory machines that sense variations in environment and monitor changes in their own performances. 

In this era of IoT, everything is connected, everything has a sensor, everything is producing data. But IoT alone is of little value. It’s only data. It lacks context and meaning. It needs to be more intelligent. This is where AI makes a difference. AI helps transform data into insights. AI helps transform data into decisions. 

This is not about mankind being replaced by machines like some dystopian nightmare. With connected machines, we can make better decisions together, rather than try to decide on things with isolated, separated devices.

There’s one area machines cannot help

This next-level efficiency won’t be reached if humans do not rethink how we organize and operate everywhere – nations, organizations, communities, and beyond. It’s up to us. Tech can’t lead the effort.

And we must erode the traditional ideas of us versus them. It’s about a collaborative effort in which our society comes together in multiple ways, transforming to a society of “we.”

IBM has collected examples of leaders who, emboldened by technology, have launched new ecosystems or innovative business models in an effort to achieve this change. Download INDUSTRIOUS Magazine to read these stories.

 

Sources:

1 Statista. Number of mobile phone users worldwide from 2015 to 2020 (in billions). https://www.statista.com/statistics/274774/forecast-of-mobile-phone-users-worldwide/

2 Forbes. How Much Social Media is Too Much? 2018. https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomward/2018/06/08/how-much-social-media-is-too-much/#6b29d5ba60e6

3 IEEE Spectrum. Popular Internet of Things Forecast of 50 Billion Devices by 2020 Is Outdated. 2016. https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/telecom/internet/popular-internet-of-things-forecast-of-50-billion-devices-by-2020-is-outdated

4 CNBC. Two-thirds of global population will live in cities by 2050, UN says. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/17/two-thirds-of-global-population-will-live-in-cities-by-2050-un-says.html

5 United Nations. World Population Prospects. 2017 Revision.