What will the robot revolution bring?

Mark Carney, the Bank of England Governor's, recent "Robots to steal 15 million jobs" warning is closely followed by a Japanese life insurer announcing that they are replacing 34 staff with robots to improve productivity by 30% and save just under £1m a year in salaries. In this instance the robots are an artificial intelligence (AI) system described as'cognitive technology that can think like a human'. It is capable of reading medical certificates and gathering data to calculate claim payments and when you also hear that an American insurer is already using AI and boasting of paying a claim for a stolen mobile phone in 3 seconds using their system known as'AI Jim', the attraction to insurers is obvious. To some, a'robot revolution' will just be another technological advancement, albeit one of significance to compare with the industrial revolution or the internet. To others it may be a very worrying radical change with the potential for global transformation, both socially and economically.