Robots will be all the rage at Davos this year

The World Economic Forum kicks off today, and the theme of this year's gathering of the world's leaders, celebrities, billionaires and the merely wealthy will be what it calls the "Fourth Industrial Revolution." That's its term for the accelerating pace of technological changes, especially those that are "blurring the lines between the physical, digital and biological spheres" -- the combination of things like artificial intelligence, robotics, nanotechnology and 3-D printing. To go with that theme, the WEF has released research looking at the effect all that change will have on jobs. It projects that by 2020, 7.1 million jobs are expected to be lost, and two million gained, with a net impact of five million jobs lost in the next half decade. "Davos Robot Eclipses Davos Man as Gloom Descends on World Elite," Bloomberg wrote in covering the news of this year's theme, which will be the topic of 20 sessions over the four-day conference.