Presented on Oct. 14 in Pre-Release online Panel Innovation: Entanglements of Interest during Relating Systems Thinking and Design (RSD12) Symposium | October 6-20, 2023
THE HERE AND NOW – The Process of Building the Discussion Around the Perceivable Misalignments Between Technology and Society in the Industry 5.0 Era
Jelena Sucic, Susu Nousala, David Ing, Gary Metcalf
Abstract
This presentation focuses on a “moment in time,” at the end of a four-year research process to study Industry 5.0. The research had been funded through an EU Horizon 2020 grant, to the IN4ACT team at Kaunas University of Technology, and the results were to be incorporated into a book describing what was learned. During an intensive five-day workshop with the IN4ACT team, a number of challenges became clear. First, even the definition of Industry 5.0 had evolved during the time of the research. Definitions ranged from mitigating the negative effects of technology on people to implications for global sustainability. Second, the technologies had evolved rapidly during the time of the investigation, most particularly aspects of artificial intelligence and machine learning, including Large Language Models. During the research project, the team had to work through and crystallize the dynamics and range of views covering capabilities of automation, robotics, Internet of Things (IoT), manufacturing to AI-driven technologies driving the techno-economic yielding, contrasting the impacts of ecosystems and landscapes of the human-centric approaches. Ultimately, the research created a snapshot (a momentary view) of a human-centric response to technological development which appears, at times, to be beyond current regulation or control. This presentation summarizes the lessons learned from the research, including the need to address the ethical and social implications of AI and other currently developing technologies.
KEYWORDS: Industry 4.0, Industry 5.0, Digital industrial transformation, Sustainable technology governance, Ecosystems, Circular economy, Society 5.0, artificial intelligence, GPT.