Abstract
The editorial board, discussing sport and technological innovation, referred to a superhuman sports committee in a special article in Volume 23 of the Japan Journal of Sport Sociology. In the seven years since then, the Superhuman Sports Association has been incorporated and carried out various activities. The technology called Human-Augmentation has developed rapidly and is called “human-machine integration”. Engineering is trying to implement these technologies based on interdisciplinary research, such as neuroscience and medicine. In 2013, the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics bid succeeded, and a platform was built among stakeholders for the development of science and technology in fields that Japan excels in, such as animation and robotics. At the same time, Human-Augmentation technology has advanced research on human beings' “sense of self-ownership” and “sense of self-agency”. As a result, it has become necessary for social scientists to reexamine the human body as a physical body, which modern sports science has taken for granted. The Avatar, which is integrated with human characteristics, also created a change in the recognition of whether it was within the range of “I” or “machine”. Additionally, it is now necessary for the establishment of rules such as whether humans or machines are responsible for unexpected accidents, personal rights and information protection, physical activities, and personal activities, considering the discussion of economic security in science and technology. It is also necessary to manage the big data of physiological information. Furthermore, it has been pointed out that there is a danger that humans may become adapted to machine dependence, and as a result the functioning on their mind and body will be reduced, and the ability of a single sports athlete could be reduced due to changes and adaptations between humans and machines. Sports are played with so-called inconvenient arrangements and rules - for example not allowing hand ball in association football - and Human-Augmentation technology is a technology for overcoming inconvenient situations in daily life. Similarly, through Human-Augmentation in Sport, people may accept the introduction of technology to better enjoy sports. Therefore, it is suggested that a discussion of the “image of human beings” is made possible through sports by Human-Augmentation technology.
