The robots are coming – but will they really take all our jobs?

The best of Voices delivered to your inbox every week - from controversial columns to expert analysis Sign up for our free weekly Voices newsletter for expert opinion and columns Sign up to our free weekly Voices newsletter Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Which must have had the Channel 4 executives ordering trebles all round, because with perfect timing they’ve designated this week the “Rise of the Robots season”, with a schedule that includes documentaries on the take-off of artificial intelligences as consulting doctors, a David Tennant-narrated piece on the challenge of making robots as human as possible, and the one that’s had the tabloids hot under the collar, today'sThe Sex Robots Are Coming – which needs little further explanation. Could we perhaps glimpse the second-order effects of artificial intelligence by understanding how electricity shocked the world?” Channel 4’s documentary, ‘The Sex Robots Are Coming’, has been hotly anticipated by the tabloids Schibsted has just released its annual Future Report, and robots and AI loom very, very large indeed. “No wonder that as I talk to business leaders in industries like retail, health diagnostics, professional services and finance, their number one priority is artificial intelligence.” Increased leisure time sounds like something we can all get behind, and those sci-fi pulps from the 1930s and 1940s featuring illustrations of humans enjoying themselves while robots do all the drudgery might be getting closer. For most leaders in industries like retail and finance, developing AI is their number one priority “And one only need to look at the dominance of Amazon in retail, and Google and Facebook in advertising, to see the risks of market dominance driven by data monopolies.” Robots and AI might right now still seem the preserve of blockbuster movies and documentaries about sex-bots, but it’s no doubt the world is changing.