Robots are expected to replace five million jobs by 2020

REUTERS/Joshua RobertsAn engineer makes an adjustment to the robot "The Incredible Bionic Man" at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington October 17, 2013. It's the latest in a series of figures economists have released projecting the impact that AI systems and machines will have on the human workforce, and this one, from the World Economic Forum, predicts a "Fourth Industrial Revolution," characterized by unprecedented "developments in genetics, artificial intelligence, robotics, nanotechnology, 3D printing, and biotechnology." And while previous industrial revolutions have catapulted the human workforce forward, this one may set us back -- at least in the short term. According to the researchers at the WEF, "current trends could lead to a net employment impact of more than 5.1 million jobs lost to disruptive labor market changes over the period 2015–2020." The Forum estimates that a grand total of 7.1 million jobs will be lost as a direct result of many of our proudest innovations, and that two-thirds of these jobs will be "concentrated in the Office and Administrative job family."