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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
- Serie: IEEE ComSoc Pocket Guides to Communications Technologies
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
This book weaves emerging themes in future 6G and Next G networks carefully together. It points to three spheres of contexts with different narratives for the year 2030 and beyond, in which the coming Metaverse as the precursor of the future Multiverse can be embedded naturally. The book aims at providing the reader with new cross-disciplinary research material, ranging from communication and computer science to cognitive science, social sciences, and behavioral economics, for building a deeper Metaverse. It will be instrumental in helping the reader find and overcome some of the most common 6G and Next G blind spots. Modern networks are more than communication and computer science. They may be better viewed as techno-social systems that exhibit complex adaptive system behavior and resemble biological superorganisms. 6G and especially Next G should go beyond continuing the linear incremental 6G=5G+1G mindset of past generations of mobile networks. To this end, the book: * Helps readers inquire into new areas of knowledge or understanding that they didn't have or didn't pay attention to find their 6G/Next G blind spots * Highlights the unique potential benefits of the virtual world for society in that it provides a useful extension of the real-world economy by compensating for its well-known market failures, e.g., rising income inequality * Provides a comprehensive description of the original Metaverse vision and highlights the different Metaverse components, applications, open research challenges, and early Metaverse deployment examples from both industry and academia * Describes how the Multiverse goes beyond the Metaverse origins and explores the importance of experience innovation since experiences play a central role in the Metaverse * Explains Web3 and the emerging field of token engineering and tokenization, i.e., the process of creating tokenized digital twins via programmable tokens, which are viewed as the killer application of Web3 networks for creating technology-enabled social organisms and restoring tech-driven common goods * Reviews anticipated 6G paradigm shifts and elaborates on the difference between 6G and Next G research, including Next G Alliance's audacious goals and their symbiotic relationship between technology and a population's societal and economic needs * Doubles down on the mutually beneficial symbiosis between digitalization and biologization for our possible evolution into future metahumans with infinite capabilities by making us smarter and creating a fundamentally new form of sociality in the Metaverse and Multiverse as well as the future stigmergy enhanced Society 5.0 by leveraging on time-tested self-organization mechanisms borrowed from nature * Presents a variety of different concepts of the true nature of reality that bring us closer to the original Metaverse vision and explains how 6G, Next G, and the Metaverse may eventually pave the way to the peak-experience machine that democratizes access to the upper range of human experiences * Touches on the possible transition from communication to services beyond communication, most notably the cross-cultural phenomenon of communitas in anthropology and its increasing degrees of perceived connectedness with others, the world, and oneself, given the importance of creating a deep sense of community in the Metaverse Written for students, network researchers, professionals, engineers, and practitioners, 6G and Onward to Next G: The Road to the Multiverse explores the latest Internet developments, with a particular focus on 6G and Next G networks in the context of the emerging Metaverse and future Multiverse as the successors of today's mobile Internet that has defined the last two decades.
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Table of Contents
COVER
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT
DEDICATION
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PREFACE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ACRONYMS
CHAPTER 1: Introduction
1.1 Toward 6G: A New Era of Convergence
1.2 Fusion of Digital and Real Worlds: Multiverse vs. Metaverse
1.3 The Big Picture: Narratives for 2030 and Beyond
1.4 Purpose and Outline of Book
References
Notes
CHAPTER 2: Metaverse: The New North Star
2.1 Origins
2.2 Early Deployments
2.3 Key Enabling Technologies
2.4 Definition(s) of the Metaverse
2.5 Metaverse Economy and Community: Gamified Experiences
References
Notes
CHAPTER 3: The Multiverse: Infinite Possibility
3.1 Experience Innovation on the Digital Frontier
3.2 The Multiverse
3.3 Beyond the Metaverse Origins: Into the Future
References
Notes
CHAPTER 4: 6G Vision and Next G Alliance Roadmap
4.1 6G Vision: Recent Progress and State of the Art
4.2 NSF: Next G Research
4.3 Next G Alliance Roadmap
References
Notes
CHAPTER 5: 6G Post‐Smartphone Era: XR and Hybrid‐Augmented Intelligence
5.1 XR in the 6G Post‐Smartphone Era
5.2 Hybrid‐Augmented Intelligence
References
Notes
CHAPTER 6: Web3 and Token Engineering
6.1 Emerging Web3 Token Economy
6.2 Backend Revolution
6.3 Technology‐Enabled Social Organisms
6.4 Tokens
6.5 Mechanism Design and Token Engineering
References
Notes
CHAPTER 7: From Robonomics to Tokenomics
7.1 Robonomics
7.2 Blockchain Oracles and On‐Chaining
7.3 Blockchain‐Enabled Trust Game
7.4 On‐Chaining Oracle for Networked
‐Player Trust Game
7.5 Playing the
‐Player Trust Game with Persuasive Robots
7.6 Tokenomics
References
Note
CHAPTER 8: Society 5.0: Internet As If People Mattered
8.1 Human Nature: Bounded Rationality and Predictable Irrationality
8.2 Society 5.0: Human‐Centeredness
8.3 The Path (DAO) to a Human‐Centered Society
8.4 From Biological Superorganism to Stigmergic Society
8.5 Biologization: Exiting the Anthropocene and Entering the Symbiocene
References
Notes
CHAPTER 9: Metahuman: Unleashing the Infinite Potential of Humans
9.1 Becoming Human: The Biological Uniqueness of Humans
9.2 Implications of Biological Human Uniqueness for Metaverse
9.3 MetaHuman Creator: Building a More Realistic Virtual World
9.4 The Case Against Reality: Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes
9.5 Simulated Reality: The Simulation Hypothesis
9.6 Metareality and Metahuman
References
Notes
CHAPTER 10: Opportunities vs. Risks
10.1 The “New New Normal” and Upcoming T Junction
10.2 Opportunities
10.3 Risks
10.4 Team Human: From Communications to Communitas
References
Notes
CHAPTER 11: Conclusion and Outlook
11.1 Today's Life in “Parallel Universes”
11.2 The Road Ahead to the Future Multiverse: 6G, Next G, and the Metaverse
11.3 Age of Discovery: Navigating the Risks and Rewards of Our New Renaissance
References
EPILOGUE
INDEX
THE COMSOC GUIDES TO COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGIES
END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT
List of Tables
Chapter 1
Table 1.1 Meta narrative Society 5.0 vs. embedded Metaverse and Multiverse: ...
Chapter 3
Table 3.1 Multiverse: variables and realms of experience.
Chapter 4
Table 4.1 Comparison between NG‐OANs and 6G RANs.
Chapter 6
Table 6.1 Tokens: taxonomy and attributes.
Chapter 7
Table 7.1 Social cues used by Pepper in mixed persuasive strategy.
List of Illustrations
Chapter 1
Figure 1.1 Internet of No Things: Integrating ubiquitous, pervasive, and per...
Figure 1.2 Evolution of Internet economy: From read‐only Web1 information ec...
Figure 1.3 The Multiverse as an architecture of advanced XR experiences: Thr...
Figure 1.4 Co‐evolution of society and industry toward Society 5.0.
Figure 1.5 6G and Next G networks offering enhanced services to disruptive a...
Figure 1.6 Visual experience of the existence of the blind spot: Follow the ...
Chapter 2
Figure 2.1 Nissan's invisible ‐to‐visible (I2V) technology concept connects ...
Figure 2.2 Roadmap to the Metaverse: requirements and development of key ena...
Chapter 3
Figure 3.1 Experience design canvas: from three‐dimensional Multiverse realm...
Chapter 4
Figure 4.1 NSF's view on Next G research: near‐, mid‐, and long‐term objecti...
Figure 4.2 Ericsson's envisioned cyber‐physical continuum for the 6G era. So...
Figure 4.3 6G standardization roadmap including worldwide launched 6G resear...
Figure 4.4 Next G Alliance Roadmap to 6G: the four foundational areas for 6G...
Chapter 5
Figure 5.1 The reality–virtuality continuum, ranging from pure reality (offl...
Figure 5.2 Experimental set‐up for demonstrating eternalism in locally conne...
Figure 5.3 Regret (given in seconds) vs. misforecast sample rate
for diffe...
Figure 5.4 Average empathic AI score of four different positive emotions exp...
Figure 5.5 DAOs vs. artificial intelligence, traditional organizations, and ...
Figure 5.6 Architecture of FiWi‐enhanced mobile networks for immersive Tacti...
Figure 5.7 Average computational task completion time (in seconds) vs. compu...
Figure 5.8 Average physical task completion time (in seconds) vs. probabilit...
Figure 5.9 Learning loss (in seconds) vs. subtask learning probability for d...
Chapter 7
Figure 7.1 Classical trust game involving two human players (trustor and tru...
Figure 7.2 Average social efficiency and normalized reciprocity
vs. deposi...
Figure 7.3 Architecture of on‐chaining oracle for networked
‐player trust g...
Figure 7.4 Average social efficiency vs. deposit
ETH for 2‐player trust ga...
Figure 7.5 Average normalized reciprocity
vs. deposit
ETH for 2‐player t...
Figure 7.6 Average normalized reciprocity
without (baseline experiment) an...
Chapter 8
Figure 8.1 CPSS‐based bottom‐up token engineering DAO framework for Society ...
Figure 8.2 Stigmergy enhanced Society 5.0 using tokenized digital twins for ...
Figure 8.3 Discovery of hidden token reward map through individual or collec...
Figure 8.4 Collective intelligence (given in percent) and internal reward (g...
Chapter 9
Figure 9.1 The uncanny valley in the observer's familiarity of an object's h...
Chapter 10
Figure 10.1 Network topologies: regular‐to‐random continuum (top) and centra...
Figure 10.2 Fusion of self and world: unitary continuum with increasing degr...
Chapter 11
Figure 11.1 We develop cognitive “blind spots” when social complexity rises ...
Guide
COVER
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT
DEDICATION
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PREFACE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ACRONYMS
BEGIN READING
EPILOGUE
INDEX
THE COMSOC GUIDES TO COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGIES
END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT
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IEEE Press
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6G AND ONWARD TO NEXT G
THE ROAD TO THE MULTIVERSE
Martin MaierInstitut National de la Recherche Scientifique (INRS)Montréal, Canada
The ComSoc Guides to Communications Technologies
Nim K. Cheung, Series Editor
Richard Lau, Associate Series Editor
Copyright © 2023 by The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.Published simultaneously in Canada.
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Cover Design: WileyCover Image: © TogsDesign/Shutterstock
“We shape our tools and then our tools shape us …We become what we behold.”
Marshall McLuhan(1911–1980)
Canada's eminent media theorist and philosopher:
Credited with predicting the rise of the Internet and phrasing the term global village in The Gutenberg Galaxy
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Maier is a full professor with the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (INRS), Montréal, Canada. He was educated at the Technical University of Berlin, Germany, and received both MSc and PhD degrees with distinctions (summa cum laude) in 1998 and 2003, respectively. He was a recipient of the two‐year Deutsche Telekom doctoral scholarship from 1999 through 2001. In 2003, he was a postdoc fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA. He was a visiting professor at Stanford University, Stanford, CA, from 2006 through 2007. He was a corecipient of the 2009 IEEE Communications Society Best Tutorial Paper Award. Further, he was a Marie Curie IIF Fellow of the European Commission from 2014 through 2015. In 2017, he received the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt (AvH) Foundation in recognition of his accomplishments in research on FiWi‐enhanced mobile networks. In 2017, he was named one of the three most promising scientists in the category “Contribution to a better society” of the Marie Skłodowska‐Curie Actions (MSCA) 2017 Prize Award of the European Commission. In 2019/2020, he held a UC3M‐Banco de Santander Excellence Chair at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M), Madrid, Spain. He is coauthor of the book “Toward 6G: A New Era of Convergence” (Wiley‐IEEE Press, January 2021) and author of the book “6G and Onward to Next G: The Road to the Multiverse” (Wiley‐IEEE Press, January 2023).
PREFACE
Global crises such as the Covid‐19 pandemic highlighted the fragility of our current approach to globalized production, especially where value chains serve basic human needs. On the flip side, however, virtual experiences such as Zoom's cloud‐based video platform for online meetings and events have skyrocketed in popularity as the Covid‐19 pandemic's online‐everything transformation took place. With the mass digital adoption of remote work and online social activities accelerated by a global pandemic, we may finally find ourselves on the verge of something big and potentially paradigm‐shifting: The Metaverse – the next step after the Internet, similar to how the mobile Internet expanded and enhanced the early Internet in the 1990s and 2000s.
The Metaverse will be about being inside the Internet rather than simply looking at it from a phone or computer screen. With the rise of the Metaverse, the Internet will no longer be at arm's length. Instead, it will surround us and will radically reshape society. Importantly, the Metaverse is not only based on the social value of today's Generation Z that online and offline selves are not different; this is because the younger generation considers the social meaning of the virtual world as important as that of the real world since they think that their identity in virtual space and reality is the same. But it also aims at realizing the fusion of digital and real worlds across all dimensions created and delivered by non‐traditional converged service platforms of future 6G and Next G networks, where developers do not hesitate to use technologies from as many disciplines as possible. They do not discriminate whether services and applications will be used by human beings or by physical, digital, or virtual objects.
The Metaverse, underpinned by decentralized Web3 technology, is widely seen as the precursor of the Multiverse. While the Metaverse primarily focuses on virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), the Multiverse offers eight advanced types of extended reality (XR) realms, which together span the entire reality–virtuality continuum, including but not limited to VR and AR. This book is a sequel to our last book titled “Toward 6G: A New Era of Convergence” (Wiley‐IEEE Press, January 2021), in which we briefly touched on the Multiverse and argued that 6G should not only explore more spectrum at high‐frequency bands but also, more importantly, converge driving technological trends such as multisensory XR applications, connected robotics and autonomous systems, wireless brain–computer interaction (a subclass of human–machine interaction), as well as blockchain and distributed ledger technologies.
The purpose of this book is to complement our prequel book by describing the most recent progress and ongoing developments in the area of the Metaverse and Multiverse. Specifically, the book aims at weaving the following emerging themes carefully together in future 6G and Next G networks and the enhanced services they offer to disruptive applications in order to enable peak‐experiences and human transformations: (i) touch‐screen typing will likely become outdated, while wearable devices will become commonplace, enabling future communication technologies that are anticipated to fold into our surroundings, thereby helping us get our noses off the smartphone screens and back into our physical and biological environments, (ii) human transformation through unifying experiences across the physical, biological, and digital worlds, (iii) seamless convergence and harmonious operations of communication and computation to provide user‐intended services and change or even transform the behavior of humans through social influence, (iv) creation of new virtual worlds to create a mixed‐reality, super‐physical world that enables new superhuman capabilities, and (v) rise of a new regime that connects all humans and machines into a global matrix, which some call the global mind or world brain, leveraging on the collective intelligence of all humans combined with the collective behavior of all machines, plus the intelligence of nature, plus whatever behavior emerges from this whole.
Despite the current lack of compelling use cases and potential pitfalls of the Metaverse, a rising number of organizations are searching for ways to use the Metaverse. This book points to three spheres of contexts, in which we outline different narratives for the year 2030 and beyond. Due to their striking similarities, we select Society 5.0 as the frame story or, if you will, meta narrative, in which the Metaverse as well as Multiverse can be embedded naturally. Taking into account our meta narrative as well as the fact that future 6G and Next G networks are anticipated to become more human‐centered than previous generations of mobile networks, cross‐disciplinary research is necessary, involving not only communications and computer science but also cognitive science, social sciences, psychology, and behavioral economics. In addition, as we shall see, neuroscience and psychological approaches should be used to better understand humans and thus build a deeper Metaverse. This book aims at providing the reader with new complementary material, putting a particular focus on 6G and Next G networks in the context of the emerging Metaverse as the successor of today's mobile Internet and precursor of tomorrow's Multiverse. We hope that this book will be instrumental in helping the reader find and overcome some of the most common 6G and Next G blind spots.
Montréal, 24 August 2022
Martin Maier
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First and foremost, I am deeply grateful to Dr. Nim Cheung, who invited me to write this sequel to our last Wiley‐IEEE Press book titled “Toward 6G: A New Era of Convergence,” in which Dr. Amin Ebrahimzadeh and I have explored the latest developments and recent progress on the key technologies enabling next‐generation 6G mobile networks, ranging from autonomous AI agents and mobile robots to multi‐sensory haptic communications and delivery of advanced XR experiences in a 6G post‐smartphone era, while putting a particular focus on their seamless convergence. Further, I am grateful to Dr. Abdeljalil Beniiche and Dr. Sajjad Rostami for their contributions to the experimental results reported in Chapters 6, 7, and 8 of this book, as well as for drawing some of the illustrative figures. Likewise, I am thankful to the invaluable comments and ideas put forth by friends, colleagues, and anonymous reviewers, who are simply too numerous to mention here by name. At Wiley‐IEEE Press, I would like to thank Mary Hatcher, Victoria Bradshaw, and in particular Teresa Netzler for their guidance throughout the whole process of preparing the book. Moreover, I would like to acknowledge the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) for funding our research through their Discovery Grant programme. Finally, and most importantly, I would like to express my love and gratitude to my beautiful wife Alexie and our two kids Coby and Ashanti Diva for sharing their digitally native Generation Z enthusiasm and hands‐on experiences with the emerging Metaverse.
M. M.
ACRONYMS
3GPP
Third Generation Partnership Project
4G
fourth generation
5G
fifth generation
6G
sixth generation
ABI
application binary interface
ACC
access control contract
ACP
artificial societies, computational experiments, parallel execution
ADC
analog‐to‐digital converter
AGI
artificial general intelligence
AI
artificial intelligence
AI4Net
AI for communication network
ANN
artificial neural network
API
application programming interface
AR
augmented reality
ARG
alternate reality game
ARIB
Association of Radio Industries and Businesses
ATIS
Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions
AV
augmented virtuality
AWS
Amazon Web Services
B5G
beyond 5G
BIoT
blockchain‐based Internet of things
BS
base station
BUMMER
behaviors of users modified, and made into an empire for rent
CAS
complex adaptive system
CI
collective intelligence
CIA
Central Intelligence Agency
CIC
Central Intelligence Corporation
CoC
computation oriented communications
CoZ
Crowd‐of‐Oz
CPS
cyber‐physical system
CPSS
cyber‐physical‐social system
CPU
central processing unit
DAC
digital‐to‐analog converter
DAO
decentralized autonomous organization
DApp
decentralized application
DL
deep learning
DLT
distributed ledger technologies
DNA
deoxyribonucleic acid
DNN
deep neural network
DSOC
decentralized self‐organizing cooperative
DSP
digital signal processing
DWE
digital world experience
ECDSA
elliptic curve digital signature algorithm
EOA
externally owned account
EPON
Ethernet passive optical network
ERC
Ethereum Request for Comments
ESF
edge sample forecasting
ESP
extrasensory perception
ESPN
extrasensory perception network
ETH
ether
ETSI
European Telecommunications Standards Institute
EVM
Ethereum virtual machine
F5G
fifth generation fixed network
FBT
fitness‐beats‐truth
FCC
Federal Communication Commission
FG‐NET
Focus Group Technologies for Network
FiWi
fiber‐wireless
FN
future networks
f‐NFT
fractionalized non‐fungible token
FTTE
fiber‐to‐the‐everywhere‐and‐everything
GDP
gross domestic product
GFT
Google Flu Trends
GMPG
Global Multimedia Protocol Group
GPS
global positioning system
GPT
general‐purpose technology
GPU
graphics processing unit
HART
human–agent–robot teamwork
HCI
human–computer interface
HetNet
heterogeneous network
HIN
hyper intelligent networks
HIT
human intelligence task
HITL
human‐in‐the‐loop
HMD
head‐mounted display
HMI
human–machine interaction
HMN
Harmonized Mobile Networks
HO
human operator
HSI
human–system interface
HTC
Holographic‐type communication
HTML
Hypertext Markup Language
I2V
invisible‐to‐visible
IA
intelligence amplification
ICT
information and communications technologies
IEN
intelligence‐endogenous network
IFrame
inline frame
IMT
International Mobile Telecommunication
IoE
Internet of everything
IoT
Internet of things
IPFS
inter‐planetary file system
ISAC
integrated sensing and communications
ISACC
integrated sensing, communications, and computing
ISG
Industry Specification Group
IT
information technologies
ITU
International Telecommunication Union
ITU‐R
ITU‐radiocommunication sector
ITU‐T
ITU‐telecommunication sector
JC
judge contract
KPI
key performance indicator
LED
light‐emitting diode
LOS
line‐of‐sight
LTE‐A
long‐term evolution advanced
M2M
machine‐to‐machine
MEC
multi‐access edge computing
MIMO
multiple‐input and multiple‐output
ML
machine learning
MMORPG
massively multiplayer online role‐playing game
MPP
mesh portal point
MR
mixed reality
MTurk
mechanical turk
MU
mobile user
MWI
many‐worlds interpretation
NbS
nature‐based solutions
NDE
near‐death experience
Net4AI
communication network for AI
NFT
non‐fungible token
NGMN
next generation mobile networks
NG‐OAN
next‐generation optical access network
NG‐PON
next‐generation passive optical network
NOMA
Non‐orthogonal multiple access
NSF
National Science Foundation
OFDM
orthogonal frequency division multiplexing
OLT
optical line terminal
ONU
optical network unit
OTT
over‐the‐top
OWC
optical wireless communication
P2P
peer‐to‐peer
PC
personal computer
PDA
perceive‐decide‐act
pHRI
physical human–robot interaction
PMN
perceptive mobile network
PON
passive optical network
PoW
proof‐of‐work
QIT
quantum information technology
QKD
quantum key distribution
QoE
quality‐of‐experience
QoS
quality‐of‐service
QR
quick response
RAN
radio access network
REN
resource efficient networks
RFID
radio‐frequency identification
RGB
red green blue
RIS
reconfigurable intelligent surface
RPC
remote procedure call
SAGSIN
space‐air‐ground‐sea integrated network
SDG
sustainable development goal
SDO
standard development organization
sHRI
social human–robot interaction
SLAM
simultaneous localization and mapping
STER
selflessness, timelessness, effortlessness, and richness
TBSN
trust‐based secure networks
TDM
time division multiplexing
TOR
teleoperator robot
TRC
TRON request for comments
TV
television
UAV
unmanned aerial vehicle
URL
Universal Resource Locator
URLLC
ultra‐reliable and low‐latency communication
V2X
vehicle‐to‐everything
VC
venture capital
VPN
virtual private network
VR
virtual reality
VUCA
volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous
WDM
wavelength division multiplexing
WiFi
wireless fidelity
WLAN
wireless local area network
WoZ
Wizard‐of‐Oz
WRC
world radiocommunication conference
XAI
explainable artificial intelligence
XR
extended reality
CHAPTER 1Introduction
“Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.”
PABLO PICASSO(1881–1973)
1.1 Toward 6G: A New Era of Convergence
This book is a sequel to our last Wiley‐IEEE Press book titled “Toward 6G: A New Era of Convergence,” which was authored together with Amin Ebrahimzadeh and was the first published book on future 6G mobile networks [1].
In our prequel book, we argued that 6G should not only explore more spectrum at high‐frequency bands but, more importantly, converge driving technological trends. Our applied approach was in line with the bold, forward‐looking research agenda put forth by Saad et al. [2], which intends to serve as a basis for stimulating more out‐of‐the‐box research that will drive the 6G revolution. Specifically, Saad et al. [2] claim that there will be the following four driving applications behind 6G: (i) multisensory extended reality (XR) applications, (ii) connected robotics and autonomous systems, (iii) wireless brain–computer interaction (a subclass of human–machine interaction), and (iv) blockchain and distributed ledger technologies. Among other 6G driving trends, they emphasize the importance of edge intelligence and the emergence of smart environments and new human‐centric service classes, as well as the end of the smartphone era, given that smart wearables are increasingly replacing the functionalities of smartphones. They argue that smartphones were central to 4G and 5G. However, in recent years there has been an increase in wearable devices whose functionalities are gradually replacing those of smartphones, ranging from integrated headsets to smart body implants that can take direct sensory inputs from human senses. These emerging smart wearables may bring an end to smartphones and potentially drive a majority of 6G use cases.
One of the most intriguing 6G visions out there at the time of writing our prequel book was outlined by Harish Viswanathan and Preben E. Mogensen, two Nokia Bell Labs Fellows, in an open access article titled “Communications in the 6G Era” [3]. In this article, the authors focus not only on the technologies but they also expect the human transformation in the 6G era through unifying experiences across the physical, biological, and digital worlds in what they refer to as the network with the sixth sense. Combining the multi‐modal sensing capabilities with the cognitive technologies enabled by the 6G platform will allow for analyzing behavioral patterns and people's preferences and even emotions, hence creating a sixth sense that anticipates user needs and allowing for interactions with the physical world in a much more intuitive way.
Furthermore, Viswanathan and Mogensen [3] claim that new themes are likely to emerge. Specifically, the future of connectivity is in the creation of digital twin worlds that are a true representation of the physical and biological worlds at every spatial and time instant, unifying our experience across these physical, biological, and digital worlds. Digital twins of various objects created in edge clouds will form the essential foundation of the future digital world. Digital twin worlds of both physical and biological entities will be an essential platform for the new digital services of the future. Digitalization will also pave the way for the creation of new virtual worlds with digital representations of imaginary objects that can be blended with the digital twin world to various degrees to create a mixed‐reality, super‐physical world, enabling new superhuman capabilities. Augmented reality (AR) user interfaces will enable efficient and intuitive human control of all these worlds, whether physical, virtual, or biological, thus creating a unified experience for humans and the human transformation resulting from it. Dynamic digital twins in the digital world with increasingly accurate, synchronous updates of the physical world will be an essential platform for augmenting human intelligence.
Importantly, Viswanathan and Mogensen [3] outlined a vision of the future life and digital society on the other side of the 2030s. While the smartphone and the tablet will still be around, we are likely to see new man–machine interfaces that will make it substantially more convenient for us to consume and control information. The authors expect that wearable devices, such as earbuds and devices embedded in our clothing, will become common. We will have multiple wearables that we carry with us and they will work seamlessly with each other, providing natural, intuitive interfaces. Touch‐screen typing will likely become outdated. Gesturing and talking to whatever devices we use to get things done will become the norm. The devices we use will be fully context‐aware, and the network will become increasingly sophisticated at predicting our needs. This context awareness combined with new man–machine interfaces will make our interaction with the physical and digital world much more intuitive and efficient. The computing needed for these devices will likely not all reside in the devices themselves because of form factor and battery power considerations. Rather, they may have to rely on locally available computing resources to complete tasks beyond the edge cloud. As consumers, we can expect that the self‐driving concept cars of today will be available to the masses by the 2030s. They will be self‐driving most of the time and thus will substantially increase the time available for us to consume data from the Internet in the form of more entertainment, rich communications, or education. Further, numerous domestic service robots will complement the vacuum cleaners and lawn mowers we know today. These may take the form of a swarm of smaller robots that work together to accomplish tasks.
In fact, according to [4], nothing has happened yet in terms of the Internet. The Internet linked humans together into one very large thing. From this embryonic net will be born a collaborative interface, a sensing, cognitive apparatus with power that exceeds any previous invention. The hard version of it is a future brought about by the triumph of a superintelligence. According to Kelly, however, a soft singularity is more likely, where artificial intelligence (AI) and robots converge – humans plus machines – and together we move to a complex interdependence. This phase has already begun. We are connecting all humans and all machines into a global matrix, which some call the global mind or world brain. It is a new regime wherein our creations will make us better humans. This new platform will include the collective intelligence (CI) of all humans combined with the collective behavior of all machines, plus the intelligence of nature, plus whatever behavior emerges from this whole. Kelly estimates that by the year 2025 every person will have access to this platform via some almost‐free device.
Our prequel book described the latest developments and recent progress on the key technologies enabling 6G mobile networks, paying particular attention to their seamless convergence. Among other potential research directions, 6G will take cloud services to the next level by moving many of the computational and storage functions from the smartphone to the cloud. As a result, most of the computational power of the smartphone can focus on presentation rendering, making virtual reality (VR), AR, or XR more impressive and affordable. Furthermore, 6G will transform a transmission network into a computing network. One of the possible trademarks of 6G could be the seamless convergence and harmonious operations of transmission, computing, AI, machine learning, and big data analytics such that 6G is expected to detect the users' transmission intent autonomously and automatically provide personalized services based on a user's intent and desire.
In the final chapter of our prequel book, we took an outlook on how future profound 6G technologies will weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it. As a result, the boundary between virtual (i.e. online) and physical (i.e. offline) worlds is to become increasingly imperceptible, while both digital and physical capabilities of humans are to be extended via edge computing variants with embedded AI capabilities. More specifically, we elaborated on the implications of the transition from the current gadgets‐based Internet to a future Internet that is evolving from bearables (e.g. smartphone), moves toward wearables (e.g. Google and Levi's smart jacket or Amazon's announced voice‐controlled Echo Loop ring, glasses, and earbuds), and then finally progresses to nearables (e.g. intelligent mobile robots). Nearables denote nearby surroundings or environments with embedded computing/storage technologies and service provisioning mechanisms that are intelligent enough to learn and react according to user context and history in order to provide user‐intended services. While 5G was supposed to be about the Internet of Everything (IoE), to be transformative 6G might be just about the opposite of Everything, i.e. Nothing or, more technically, No Things. Toward this end, we introduced the Internet of No Things as an extension of immersive VR from virtual to real environments, where human‐intended Internet services – either digital or physical – appear when needed and disappear when not needed. In doing so, the Internet of No Things helps tie both online and offline worlds closer together for the extension of human capabilities and experiences, ranging from conventional VR and AR to advanced XR and even more sophisticated cross‐reality environments that involve various types of physical and digital realities.
Figure 1.1 depicts our proposed architecture of the Internet of No Things, which integrates the following three evolutionary stages of mobile computing: (i) ubiquitous, (ii) pervasive, and (iii) persuasive computing. Ubiquitous computing is embedded in the things surrounding us (i.e. nearables), while pervasive computing involves bearables and wearables. Persuasive computing aims at changing or even transforming the behavior of human users through social influence. As explained in technically greater detail in Chapter 5, the Internet of No Things will be instrumental in not only establishing XR as the next‐generation mobile computing platform for the extension of human capabilities and experiences but also enabling future communication technologies that are anticipated to fold into our surroundings, thereby helping us get our noses off the smartphone screens and back into our physical and biological environments. The Internet of No Things represents an important stepping stone toward ushering in the 6G post‐smartphone era and its underlying fusion of digital and real worlds created and delivered by non‐traditional converged service platforms.
Figure 1.1 Internet of No Things: Integrating ubiquitous, pervasive, and persuasive computing for the extension of human capabilities and experiences.
Source: Maier et al. (2020). © 2020 IEEE.
1.2 Fusion of Digital and Real Worlds: Multiverse vs. Metaverse
In May 2019, the ITU‐T Focus Group Network 2030 (FG‐NET‐2030), an initiative focusing on the fixed networks domain, published the first white paper on their Network 2030 vision [5]. Network 2030 is an abstraction of network technologies required to deliver advanced applications in 2030 and the decade after. It aims at coexisting with deployed infrastructures, incrementally inserting new capabilities in both public and private fixed (wireline) networks. According to [5], the next frontier in multimedia after VR and AR will include holographic media and multi‐sense network services, e.g. haptic communication services. Soon our experiences with VR/AR will determine that they are not real enough, calling for new media, unencumbered by today's head‐mounted displays (HMDs). The fusion of digital and real worlds across all dimensions is the driving theme for Network 2030, created and delivered by non‐traditional converged service platforms, where developers do not hesitate to use technologies from as many disciplines as possible. They do not discriminate whether services and applications will be used by human beings, or by physical, digital, or virtual objects.
The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) launched its Industry Specification Group (ISG) fifth generation fixed network (F5G) initiative, which aims at promoting the expansion of fixed networks to as many sectors as possible via fiber‐to‐the‐everywhere‐and‐everything (FTTE) [6]. F5G also considers complementary wireless technologies, most notably WiFi 6, for the last meters to enable use cases such as cloud VR, online gaming, smart factory, and the support for the evolution of 5G networks. According to [6], F5G is the foundation of the new digital age and is a prerequisite for the digital transformation of the whole society. F5G is just the beginning and a first step for more generations to come. The evolution of F5G, together with that of mobile 5G and 6G, is expected to support new application scenarios involving digital avatar life, full sensory (including tactile and haptic) Internet, and a ubiquitous intelligent society in this new era of convergence.
In the final chapter of our prequel book, we also introduced the concept of the so‐called Multiverse as an interesting attempt to help realize the fusion of digital and real worlds. The Multiverse offers eight different types of reality, including but not limited to VR and AR, as explained shortly. A term closely related to the Multiverse is the recently emerging Metaverse. According to [7], the Metaverse will be the precursor of the Multiverse. Specifically, the Metaverse might be viewed as the next step after the Internet, similar to how the mobile Internet expanded and enhanced the early Internet in the 1990s and 2000s. The various adventures that this place has to offer will surround us both socially and visually. The Metaverse is unique in that it spans a wide range of interconnected platforms as well as the digital and physical worlds underpinned by decentralized Web3 technology.
As shown in Figure 1.2, while the Web1 (read‐only web) and Web2 (read‐and‐write web) enabled the knowledge economy and today's platform economy, respectively, the Web3 will enable the token economy where anyone's contribution is compensated with a token. The token economy enables completely new use cases, business models, and types of assets and access rights in a digital way that were economically not feasible before, thus enabling completely new use cases and value creation models. Note that the term token economy is far from novel. In cognitive psychology, it has been widely studied as a medium of exchange, and arguably more importantly, as a positive reinforcement method for establishing desirable human behavior, which in itself may be viewed as one kind of value creation. Unlike coins, however, which have been typically used only as a payment medium, tokens may serve a wide range of different non‐monetary purposes. Such purpose‐driven tokens are instrumental in incentivizing an autonomous group of individuals to collaborate and contribute to a common goal. The exploration of tokens, in particular different types and roles, is still in the very early stages [8].
Figure 1.2 Evolution of Internet economy: From read‐only Web1 information economy and read‐write Web2 platform economy to read‐write‐execute Web3 token economy based on decentralized blockchain technologies.
According to [7], the Metaverse will put the user first, allowing every member of our species to delve into new realms of possibilities. A modern, digital renaissance is taking place on the grandest state we have ever seen, involving billions of connected brains. In the coming decades, a new era of virtual life will bring in our next big milestone as a networked species.
In the following, we briefly elaborate on the salient features and main characteristics of the Multiverse and Metaverse.
1.2.1 The Multiverse: An Architecture of Advanced XR Experiences
In this section, we briefly highlight how the Multiverse can be used to tie both online and offline worlds closer together in the Internet of No Things. According to [9], the Multiverse offers a powerful experience design canvas to uncover hidden XR opportunities by fusing the real and the virtual, thereby creating cross‐reality environments or so‐called third spaces. Third spaces are created whenever one transverses the boundary between different XR realms within any given experience, as explained in more detail shortly. It is worthwhile to mention that, in “The Computer for the 21st Century,” Mark Weiser seems to had something similar in mind when describing what he initially called embodied virtuality, which is now more widely referred to as ubiquitous computing [10].
Apart from conventional VR and AR, future XR technologies may realize novel, unprecedented types of reality. Thus, X may be rather viewed as a placeholder for future yet unforeseen developments on the digital frontier. An interesting attempt to charter the unknown territory is the Multiverse, which may serve as an architecture of advanced XR experiences. As shown in Figure 1.3, the Multiverse consists of the following architectural components:
Figure 1.3 The Multiverse as an architecture of advanced XR experiences: Three dimensions, six variables, and eight realms.
Source: (Pine and Korn, 2011) © Berrett‐Koehler Publishers.
Dimensions:
There are the three well‐known physical dimensions – Space, Time, and Matter – that constitute our physical reality.
Variables:
In addition, there are three non‐physical dimensions – referred to as
No‐Space
,
No‐Time
, and
No‐Matter
– that make up the virtual world. Unlike their physical counterparts, these three digital dimensions are not subject to the constraints imposed by physical space, time, and matter. Thus, in total there are six variables that can be exploited for the design of advanced XR experiences.
Realms:
Given that there are three (3) pairs of variables, each with two (2) opposite physical/digital dimensions, we have a total of
possible realms. Each realm creates a different type of reality, ranging from conventional VR and AR to more sophisticated types of reality, e.g. mirrored virtuality, warped reality, and alternate reality. Mirrored virtuality absorbs the real world into the virtual and creates a virtual expression of reality that unfolds as it actually happens, providing a particular bird's eye view. Warped reality plays with time in any way possible by taking an experience firmly grounded in reality and shifting it from actual to autonomous time. Alternate reality, on the other hand, creates an alternative view of the real world by constructing a digital experience and superimposing it onto a real place. Unlike AR, however, alternate reality manipulates time and allows looking to the future freed from the bonds of actual time.
In Chapter 3, we will describe the Multiverse's eight different realms in technically greater detail and its great potential for the design of advanced XR experiences in a more comprehensive manner.
1.2.2 Metaverse: The Next Big Thing?
Recall from above that the Metaverse is anticipated to be the next Internet. The Metaverse is a new realm that will combine the actual and virtual worlds. It is all about virtual experiences and digital assets. Among others, the Metaverse ought to have the following main characteristics: (i) It must be a shared experience; just as it is in the real world, we get to witness events as they unfold; (ii) it must be possible to purchase and sell things to each other in a virtual economy; (iii) it has to be possible for people to participate in activities that combine the real and virtual worlds. Accordingly, the Metaverse has been described as a set of virtual experiences, locales, and products that increased in popularity as the Covid‐19 pandemic's online‐everything transformation took place. The Metaverse has the potential to alter practically every area of our life drastically. For instance, in the Metaverse, we can travel, study, work, consume entertainment, shop, and communicate with others. More importantly, the Metaverse will open up new avenues for earning a living and compensating for a broad and diversified spectrum of previously unrewarded creative activity (see also Web3 token economy above) [7].
Several companies have already embraced the Metaverse. Apple, Google, Samsung, The Walt Disney Company, Nintendo, Nvidia, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Epic Games, and others are involved. For instance, recently, on 18 January 2022, Microsoft has announced the acquisition of game developer and interactive entertainment content publisher Activision Blizzard in an all‐cash deal worth almost USD$69 billion. The deal is Microsoft's largest acquisition in its 46‐year history. The acquisition is being widely seen as a big bet to keep Microsoft competitive in the burgeoning Metaverse space. Their key point is that the Metaverse has the potential for social interaction, experimentation, entertainment, and, most importantly, profit. A rising number of organizations are searching for ways to use it. While other businesses are still figuring out what the term means, the Metaverse is already gaining traction in the gaming industry, with Epic Games and Roblox leading the charge. The two video gaming titans present a vision of what the Metaverse may be in terms of content and audience. For instance, Epic Games' Fortnite gave a virtual concert that drew over 12 million people.1 At the same time, Roblox and Gucci collaborated to build a virtual Gucci Garden environment where limited‐edition virtual bags were sold. One of the digital bags was sold for the equivalent of USD$4115, USD$800 more expensive than the physical counterpart. Epic Games is also providing far more than simply a practical on‐ramp to its Metaverse‐building efforts. Thousands of games use its Unreal Engine, the second largest independent gaming engine, which makes it simple to interchange assets, integrate experiences, and share user profiles [7].
On the other hand, there have been some critical voices recently surfacing about the lack of compelling use cases and potential pitfalls of the Metaverse. Perhaps most famously, Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, poked fun at the Metaverse. On 21 December 2021, in an interview with The Babylon Bee,2 he noted that he grew up being told not to sit too close to a television screen, as it was bad for his eyesight, quoting him: “I don't know if I necessarily buy into this Metaverse stuff. Sure, you can put a TV on your nose,” mocking the suggestion that people would willingly wear VR/AR headsets for big chunks of their day and the idea that this would actually transport a person into a different world, “although people talk to me a lot about it – Web3.” He added: “I think we're far from disappearing into the Metaverse. This sounds just kind of buzzword‐y,” though he acknowledged that he might be seen as rejecting the Metaverse in the same way many dismissed the Internet in its early days of 1990s: “There's some danger that that's the case. But I currently am unable to see a compelling Metaverse situation. I don't get it. Maybe I will, but I don't get it yet.”
Even more critical about the Metaverse is Ethan Zuckerman, former director of the Center for Civic Media at MIT. In an article in The Atlantic,3 Zuckerman argues that Facebook's recently presented Metaverse imagines futures that have been imagined a thousand times before. He claims that Facebook's Metaverse looks pretty much like they imagined one would like in 1994, when he together with his collaborator Daniel Beck were hoping to recreate the vision that Neal Stephenson had outlined in his 1992 book Snow Crash. He admits that they were both self‐conscious enough to understand that Snow Crash took place in a dystopia, and that Stephenson was positing a beautiful virtual world because the outside world had become so bad that no one wanted to live in it. Zuckerman concludes that today's Metaverse creators are missing the point. The Metaverse isn't about building perfect virtual escape hatches – it's about holding a mirror to our own broken, shared world.
In Chapter 2, we will delve deeper into the original vision of the Metaverse, outlined by Neal Stephenson in his seminal book Snow Crash, and contrast it to the more familiar concept of cyberspace. Unlike cyberspace that resides entirely in virtuality, the Metaverse aims at connecting virtuality with reality, making it possible for people and other sentient beings, intelligent mobile robots, as well as software AI agents to communicate and interact in shared environments. Further, Chapter 2 will introduce and explain in technically greater detail the main attributes and key enabling technologies of the Metaverse, including so‐called non‐fungible tokens (NFTs).
1.3 The Big Picture: Narratives for 2030 and Beyond
1.3.1 From IoT‐Based Industry 4.0 to Human‐Centric Cyber–Physical–Social Systems
The current fourth industrial revolution has been enabled through the Internet of Things (IoT) in association with other emerging technologies, most notably cyber‐physical systems (CPS). CPS help bridge the gap between manufacturing and information technologies (IT) and give birth to the smart factory. This technological evolution enables Industry 4.0 as a prime agenda of the High‐Tech Strategy 2020 Action Plan taken by the government of Germany, the Industrial Internet from General Electric in the USA, and the Internet+ from China. Smart factories under Industry 4.0 have several benefits such as optimal resource handling, but also imply minimum human intervention in manufacturing [11].
When human beings are functionally integrated into a CPS at the social, cognitive, and physical levels, it becomes a so‐called cyber‐physical–social system(CPSS), whose members may engage in cyber‐physical–social behaviors that eventually enable metahuman beings with types of superhuman capabilities. CPSS belong to the family of future techno‐social systems that by design still require heavy involvement from humans at the network edge instead of automating them away. A promising example of such human‐centric CPSS is the aforementioned Internet of No Things, which we briefly introduced above in Section 1.1 and which we will describe in technically greater detail below in Chapter 5. In addition, we will elaborate on how human‐centric blockchain technologies, most notably the emerging decentralized autonomous organization(DAO), which has become a hot topic spawned by the rapid development of blockchain technologies in recent years [12], may be exploited to enable the heavy involvement of humans interacting with autonomous AI agents and robots.
For further information and a comprehensive up‐to‐date survey of the state of the art, challenges, and opportunities of CPSS, we refer the interested reader to [13].
1.3.2 Human‐Centric Industry 5.0
In this section, we touch on the anticipated transition from today's technology‐driven Industry 4.0 to tomorrow's human‐centric Industry 5.0 and its two visions of human‐robot co‐working and a more holistic bioeconomy based on the two mutually beneficial principles of digitalization and, more interestingly, biologization.
Recently, in January 2021, the European Commission released the first edition of their policy brief on Industry 5.0 [14]. Industry 5.0 will be defined by a re‐found and widened purposefulness, going beyond producing goods and services for profit. A purely profit‐driven approach has become increasingly untenable. In a globalized world, a narrow focus on profit fails to account correctly for environmental and societal costs and benefits. Further, crises such as the Covid‐19 pandemic highlighted the fragility of our current approach to globalized production, especially where value chains serve basic human needs, e.g. healthcare. This wider purpose constitutes three core elements: (i) human‐centricity, (ii) sustainability, and (iii) resilience.
One of the most important paradigmatic transitions characterizing Industry 5.0 is the shift of focus from technology‐driven progress to a thoroughly human‐centric approach. An important prerequisite for Industry 5.0 is that technology serves people, rather than the other way around, by expanding the capabilities of workers (up‐skilling and re‐skilling) with innovative technological means such as VR/AR tools, mobile robots, and exoskeletons.
Currently, two visions emerge for Industry 5.0. The first one is human–robot co‐working, where humans will focus on tasks requiring creativity and robots will do the rest. The second vision for Industry 5.0 is bioeconomy, i.e. a holistic approach toward the smart use of biological resources for industrial processes [15]. The bioeconomy has established itself worldwide as a mainstay for achieving a sustainable economy. Its success is based on our understanding of biological processes and principles that help revolutionize our economy dominated by fossil resources and create a suitable framework so that economy, ecology, and society are perceived as necessary single entity and not as rivals. More specifically, biologization will be the guiding principle of the bioeconomy. Biologization takes advantage of nature's efficiency for economic purposes – whether they be plants, animals, residues or natural organisms. Almost every discipline shares promising interfaces with biology. In the long term, biologization will be just as significant as a cross‐cutting approach as digitalization already is today. Biologization will pave the way for Industry 5.0 in the same way as digitalization triggered Industry 4.0. It is also obvious that the two trends – biologization and digitalization – will be mutually beneficial [16].
It is interesting to note that in [14], the authors also elaborate on the relation between the concepts of Industry 5.0 and Society 5.0. While both concepts are related in the sense that they refer to a fundamental shift of our society and economy toward a new paradigm, Society 5.0 is not restricted to the manufacturing sector but addresses larger social challenges based on the integration of physical and virtual spaces, which we have discussed above in Section 1.2. In the following, we further elaborate on the Society 5.0 vision.
1.3.3 Society 5.0
Society 5.0 is an initiative of the Fifth Science and Technology Basic Plan taken by the government of Japan to facilitate a human‐centered approach that puts humans in the loop of today's CPS [17]. The human‐centeredness of Society 5.0 was recently investigated in technically greater detail by Gladden [18], who describes the goal of Society 5.0 as the ability to create equal opportunities for all and to provide the environment that helps unleash the full potential of each individual. To do so, Society 5.0 will leverage on emerging information and communications technologies (ICT) to its fullest such that physical, administrative, and social barriers to each individual's self‐realization are removed. Gladden [18] concludes that from an anthropological perspective, Society 5.0's inclusion of diverse non‐human entities – most notably social robots and AI agents – as participants is nothing new, but instead something quite ancient, a return to the unpredictability, wildness, and continual encounters with the other that characterized Societies 1.0 and 2.0, thanks to the prevalence of diverse non‐human agency resulting from a heavy reliance on animals as key participants in society and the societies' religious and spiritual dimension. For illustration, Figure 1.4 depicts the transition from past to future societies and their co‐evolution with industry [18–20].
The Industrial Revolution reduced the agricultural population from more than 90% to less than 5%. Similarly, the IT revolution reduced the manufacturing population from more than 70% to approximately 15%. The Intelligence Revolution of the 6G era will reduce the entire services population to less than 10%. Upon the question where will people go and what will they do then, Wang [21] gives the following answer: Gaming! Not leisure, but scientific gaming in cyberspace. Artificial societies, Computational experiments, and Parallel execution – the so‐called ACP approach – may form the scientific foundation while CPSS platforms may be the enabling infrastructure for the emergence of intelligent industries. Everything will have its parallel avatar or digital twin in the cyberspace such that we can conduct numerous scientific games before any major decision or operation. This new, yet unknown CPSS‐enabled connected lifestyle and working environments will eventually lead to high satisfaction as well as enhanced capacity and efficiency. Further, Wang [21] foresees that the Multiverse or parallel universes based on Hugh Everett's many‐worlds interpretation (MWI) of quantum physics will become a reality in the age of complex spaces with intelligent industries. However, he warns that the capability of CPSS to collect tremendous energy from the masses through crowdsourcing in the cyberspace and then release it into the physical space can bring us both favorable and unfavorable consequences. Therefore, one of the critical research challenges is the human‐centric construction of complex spaces based on CPSS.
Similar to Industry 4.0/5.0, Society 5.0 merges the physical space and cyberspace by applying not only social robots and embodied AI but also emerging technologies such as ambient intelligence, VR/AR, and advanced human–computer interfaces (HCI), in addition to our aforementioned CPSS example of the Internet of No Things. As shown in Figure 1.4, Society 5.0 will also exploit bionics and robonomics. Robonomics studies the sociotechnical impact of social human–robot interaction (sHRI) as well as blockchain technologies such as the DAO as well as cryptocurrencies – not only coins but also tokens – for the social integration of robots into human society [22].
It is important to note that Society 5.0 counterbalances the commercial emphasis of Industry 4.0. If the Industry 4.0 paradigm is understood as focusing on the creation of the smart factory, the Society 5.0 is geared toward creating the world's first super smart society. More interestingly, according to [23], Society 5.0 also envisions a paradigm shift from conventional monetary to future nonmonetary economies based on technologies that can measure activities toward human co‐becoming that have no monetary value. As opposed to the Western traditional idea of the human as being or having, the idea that humans will be transformed equates to the idea of the human as becoming. We cannot become human by ourselves. It is only when others come to engage us that we become human. We become human with others. In other words, we are human co‐becomings. Further, [23] elaborates that there are two paths in Buddhist practices toward enlightenment. One path changes one's mind, while the other path changes one's bodily experience. The two paths are sine qua non to complement Buddhist practices. To Kūkai, a Japanese Buddhist monk, “detached knowing” was not enough. Instead, he advocated “engaged knowing.” According to him, this is what Buddhism is all about. In Society 5.0, the focus will be on the enhancement of human capabilities and the transformation of our way of living along with body and mind. Once capabilities in a society are enriched, social mobility will increase accordingly and social disparity becomes relatively weak. Toward this end, the future Society 5.0 should have indexes for social mobility as well as enrichment of capabilities.
Figure 1.4 Co‐evolution of society and industry toward Society 5.0.
Adapted from [18–20]. Beniiche et al. (2022). © 2022 IEEE.
Hitachi‐UTokyo Laboratory (H‐UTokyo Lab) [23] concludes by stating that in order to ensure that Society 5.0 does not become a dystopian society, we have to redefine the modern concept of humanity and find a path toward human co‐becoming with others. Nonetheless, this path is not so easy, because humans are open to possibilities to transform themselves into any directions, including undesirable ones. In other words, we do not have a fixed telos (from the Greek télos, purpose, end, or goal) for co‐becoming.4 It would be wonderful indeed if our ancient knowledge like that of Kūkai turns up again in the future society in a new form (to be further discussed below in Section 1.4).
As we shall see in Chapter 8, in virtual worlds, people don't have trouble forming ad hoc groups constantly, because people are often thrown together by various quests. It is completely normal to walk up to strangers with no introduction whatever and ask them to join you in pursuit of a task. Virtual worlds unite collectivism and individualism in a complementary manner. In doing so, they create an ideal community–individual relationship in which we could always be independent if we wanted to be, but there would also be a community available at all times if we wanted to be part of a group. Toward this end, in Chapter 8, we borrow ideas from the biological superorganism with brain‐like cognitive abilities observed in colonies of social insects. Specifically, the concept of stigmergy (from the Greek words stigma “sign” and ergon “work”), originally introduced in 1959 by French zoologist Pierre‐Paul Grassé, is a class of self‐organization mechanisms that made it possible to provide an elegant explanation to his paradoxical observations that in a social insect colony individuals work as if they were alone while their collective activities
