This research-issue examines the role that Human Factors and Ergonomics （HFE） should play in addressing global-scale challenges. Traditionally, HFE has focused on human safety, health, efficiency, and comfort, developing through its emphasis on the interaction between humans and the objects or systems they engage with. In recent years, however, there has been a growing demand for broader contributions through a systems approach. In particular, achieving a sustainable society requires rethinking conventional frameworks and reconstructing the relationships among humans, the environment, society, and nature. This paper discusses the need to consider diverse stakeholders and explores both the potential and future challenges of HFE in this context.

Research and development is beginning to extract the causes of accidents and incidents and related human factors by analyzing document data published as accident investigation reports using natural language processing （NLP） and large-scale language models （LLM）. This paper discuss the potential for using artificial intelligence （AI） as a new methodology for improving the efficiency and quality of social technology system accident investigations, introducing the germinal research conducted by our research group. By having a GPT （Generative Pretrained Transformer） analyze the cause （factor） identification of a specific aviation accident report using the HFACS （Human Factors Analysis and Classification System）, we examined the better direction, limitations, and issues of applying generative AI to accident investigations, and reconsidered the role of the human factors domain.

We had the opportunity to reanalyze personality and behavioral scale data that had been accumulated over a quarter century. We made secondary use of 5 years of accumulated data on approximately 190,000 people to explore the relationship between each personality trait and error tendency and low validity. During this analysis process, there were several issues that required attention, such as ethical issues and the handling of the analysis results. Other issues that need to be considered in the future include opt-out and post-collection measures, and considerations for secondary use of research results such as means, number of Survey participants, and standard deviation.

Human Factors and Ergonomics （HFE） is a scientific discipline that contributes to the design of tasks, work, products, environments, and systems through the reciprocal interaction of theory and practice. Based on my experience as an editor of the Japanese Journal of Ergonomics and my perspective as an HFE professional, this paper organizes the current state of HFE’s theory and practice. It also identifies the challenges in promoting mutual enhancement and reciprocal interaction between the two and offers a forward-looking perspective on advancing the HFE to the next stage.