Disrupting the business world for good?

Unsurprisingly, it is robots and automation which frequently take centre stage. And anyone who has observed their progress at the event will note that, each year, they seem to be more mobile, more intelligent and more human. Indeed, one of the highlights of this year's show was a Scrabble-playing robot, exhibited by Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), which used artificial intelligence (AI), 3D vision recognition and eye-hand co-ordination technologies to play and interact with humans as well as learn from experience. While BBC technology reporter Dave Lee seemed to acknowledge his defeat at the hands of the robot, he also quizzed ITRI's Sean Wang on whether the company was creating something that ultimately could take away people's livelihoods. Wang's response was there is "a trade-off" and it is part of the "inevitable trend" of replacing human, including skilled human labour, with AI.