Could robots take over our jobs?

Artificial intelligence "will soon destroy millions of human jobs," warned Gerd Leonhard of The Futures Agency, a speaker at Tata Communications' CEO Summit 2016 earlier this month. "In five years most companies will have armies of very cheap, very powerful machines, connected to a smart cloud, and they will be able to accomplish so many routine processes," the Zurich-based futurist said. "Some 25 years from now machines, through cognitive computing and using vast amounts of data from humans, will do all of that kind of work." A select cluster of 60 business leaders attended the two-day conference at Coworth Park in Ascot, which both educated and provoked. It addressed concerns but also flagged up potential opportunities.