Towards a New Society: Solving the Dilemma Between Society 5.0 and Industry 5.0

Along with the technology development, new theoretical concepts are born continuously. Nowadays, given the challenges societies are facing (e.g., climate change, digitalization), an agreement on the meaning of concepts we want to build our societies on has never been more crucial. We have been living in Industry 4.0, and a new society is now approaching, grounded in two new conceptual perspectives: Society 5.0 and Industry 5.0. The level of common ground shared by these two new terms is not clear. On the one hand, they might be referred as synonyms, whereas on the other some differences are evident, as Society 5.0 seems to be related more to the human sphere, while Industry 5.0 seems to be more industrial-centered. A clarification is deemed mandatory. Therefore, the present article consists in a literature review, with the aim of clarifying which are the main commonalities and differences between Society 5.0 and Industry 5.0. 170 potentially relevant articles were found on Scopus, and 40 were analyzed by the authors, based on criteria such as language, relevance, and type of publication. For each article, the definition of Society 5.0 and Industry 5.0 was identified and analyzed. Finally, the definitions were compared and conclusions on the predominance of similarities over differences between the two concepts were drawn. With the present work, the authors took stock of the actual society, and give final indications on which studies are needed in the future.