Beware the unintended consequences of a robot revolution

Ask an economist or a technology expert and they will happily tell you that decades of data reliably show automation has created more jobs than it has destroyed. Far fewer of us now work on farms, for example, thanks to super-efficient machines that do the bulk of the work. Such technology has boosted productivity and, with it, living standards. As a result, more people work in leisure industries such as hospitality or hairdressing, serving all those people with higher disposable incomes and more free time. And were the pattern to continue, one could envisage the realisation at last of the prediction made by John Maynard Keynes in 1930 that the working week would eventually be cut, perhaps to just 15 hours.