The future impacts of artificial intelligence (AI) on society and the labour force have been studied and reported extensively. In a recent book, AI Superpowers, Kai-Fu Lee, former president of Google China, wrote that 40 to 50 per cent of current jobs will be technically and economically viable with AI and automation over the next 15 years. Artificial intelligence refers to computer systems that collect, interpret and learn from external data to achieve specific goals and tasks. Unlike natural intelligence displayed by humans and animals, it is an artificial form of intelligence demonstrated by machines. This has raised questions about the ethics of AI decision-making and impacts of AI in the workplace.

The future impacts of artificial intelligence (AI) on society and the labour force have been studied and reported extensively. In a recent book, AI Superpowers, Kai-Fu Lee, former president of Google China, wrote that 40 to 50 per cent of current jobs will be technically and economically viable with AI and automation over the next 15 years. Artificial intelligence refers to computer systems that collect, interpret and learn from external data to achieve specific goals and tasks. Unlike natural intelligence displayed by humans and animals, it is an artificial form of intelligence demonstrated by machines. This has raised questions about the ethics of AI decision-making and impacts of AI in the workplace.

In 2013, Carl Frey and Michael Osborne – academics at the Oxford Martin School at Oxford University – published a research paper entitled The Future of Employment: How susceptible are jobs to computerisation? Applying a new methodology to estimate the probability of computerisation for 702 specific occupations, Frey and Osborne predicted that as many as 47% of workers in the US economy were at a high risk of being replaced by robots in the medium term. The paper shocked analysts, policy makers and the public around the world, and set the tone for a debate that has raged ever since. Artificial intelligence, machine learning and robotics are already changing the world of work, and the innovation wave has barely got started. And while estimates vary about how many jobs are "at risk", and in what kinds of occupations, there is a consensus that, one way or another, the world is on the brink of major change.

The eruption of the Agung volcano in Bali, Indonesia has been devastating, particularly for the 55,000 local people who have had to leave their homes and move into shelters. It has also played havoc with the flights in and out of the island, leaving people stranded while the experts try to work out what the volcano will do next. But this has been a fascinating time for scholars like me who investigate the use of drones in social justice, environmental activism and crisis preparedness. The use of drones in this context is just the latest example of the "computerisation of nature" and raises questions about how reality is increasingly being constructed by software. Amazon drone delivery is developing in the UK, drone blood delivery is happening in Rwanda, while in Indonesia people are using drones to monitor orangutan populations, map the growth and expansion of palm oil plantations and gather information that might help us predict when volcanoes such as Agung might again erupt with devastating impact.

In 2013 Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne published a report titled "The Future of Employment: How susceptible are jobs to computerisation?". The authors examine how susceptible jobs are to computerisation, by implementing a novel methodology to estimate the probability of computerisation for 702 detailed occupations, using a Gaussian process classifier. According to their estimates, about 47 percent of total US employment is at risk. Although the report is specific to the US job market, it is easy to see how this might apply all over the world. We extracted the jobs and the probability of automation from the report and have made it easy to search for your job.

This seminar is part of the Oxford Martin School Hilary Term seminar series: Blurring the lines: the changing dynamics between man and machine Speakers: Dr Carl Frey, James Martin Fellow, Oxford Martin Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology Dr Michael Osborne, University Lecturer in Machine Learning, University of Oxford Will you one day lose your job to a robot, or even an algorithm? Dr Carl Frey and Dr Michael Osborne's recent working paper, 'The Future of Employment: How susceptible are jobs to computerisation?', found that nearly half of US jobs could be susceptible to computerisation over the next two decades. So as technology races ahead, will low-skilled workers need to retrain in order to remain part of the workforce?

Erik Brynjolfsson has a dream of the future. A vision of a world where computers entrench the power of a wealthy elite and push the majority into poverty. A world where the rising tide of technology doesn't lift all boats, but sucks under all but the biggest ships. Brynjolfsson is an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and co-author of The Second Machine Age, a book that asks what jobs will be left once software has perfected the art of driving cars, translating speech and other tasks once considered the domain of humans. Dystopia is only one outcome foreseen by Brynjolfsson, but why does he even think it's a possibility? New technology has upended industries for millennia. But the advent of the power loom or steam engine didn't permanently rob men of labour. So what makes today different?