Despite fears that robots will replace human labor, the majority of artificial intelligence (AI) leaders (79 percent) expect their employees will work comfortably with robots by 2020, according to this new global study released by our friends over at Genpact of C-Suite and senior executives titled, Is Your Business AI-Ready? According to Genpact Senior Vice President Gianni Giacomelli, the opportunity lies in creating an organization that encourages collaboration and sets up workers for success with reskilling and training programs. Without the proper culture, enterprises' investments and AI will go to waste and be rendered ineffective. The return on investment from AI is considerable. Overall, survey respondents cite cost reductions as the leading outcome, but that's no surprise.

In a poem first published in 1967, Richard Brautigan imagined a world in which people were freed of all their labors and reunited with nature in a world "all watched over by machines of loving grace." In different words, this theme was a hot topic for attendees and presenters at the recent Dell EMC World conference in Las Vegas. Not so much about machines of loving grace, but it seemed that everywhere you went people were talking about machine learning and artificial intelligence, and what this new era means for all of us. In a "Guru Session," Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, explored some of the implications of the rise of AI, including the notion of machines taking over jobs long held by humans. He noted that there are many mundane jobs that humans really shouldn't be doing.