Robots 'will make majority of humans unemployed within 30 years'

The pace at which robots and intelligent machines are able to take over the jobs traditionally performed by humans will result in more than half the population being unemployed within 30 years, an expert in computing has predicted. While some may look forward to a life of leisure, many others face the dismal prospect of long-term unemployment as a result of the rise of smart machines, from self-driving cars and intelligent drones to smart financial-trading machines, said Moshe Vardi, professor of computational engineering at Rice University in Houston, Texas. Speaking at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting in Washington, Professor Vardi predicted that developments in robotics and artificial intelligence will create a workplace revolution unlike any other seen since the start of the industrial age more than two centuries ago. "We are approaching a time when machines will be able to outperform humans at almost any task. I believe that society needs to confront this question before it is upon us," Professor Vardi said. "I do believe that, by 2045, machines will be able to do a very significant fraction of the work a man can do.