The publication of Federico Pistono's book, Robots Will Steal Your Job, But That's OK, back in 2012 spawned a thousand think pieces, news headlines, and debates over what the future of robotics means for humans and the workplace. At a recent Future of Ageing Conference held by the think tank International Longevity Centre (ILC) in London, the topic was once again up for debate. Whilst the consensus is that the robots are coming, in fact many argue they're already here, Caroline Waters, vice chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission and vice president of Carers UK, made an interesting point in regards to the robotic effect on the labour market. "We're conflating robots and AI with industry," said Waters. "Actually we're more likely to use domestic robots."

The tech giant's latest annual report outlined some of the risk factors connected to AI Microsoft has warned investors that the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in its offerings may result in reputational harm or liability. The company's annual report acknowledged the potential risks involved in the development and adoption of the next-generation technology. "AI algorithms may be flawed. Datasets may be insufficient or contain biased information. Inappropriate or controversial data practices by Microsoft or others could impair the acceptance of AI solutions," the report read.

As human-like machines begin to perform more advanced tasks, we fear that they will replace us, take our jobs even. But the truth is, machines are making our lives easier and allowing us to focus more on what humans do best, such as making subjective decisions and using our emotional intelligence. Robots and machines, in effect, remove the clutter that often causes our productivity to wane and our attention to waver. Rather than fear technology, we should embrace it because it takes care of repetitive--and often mundane--tasks like data collection and processing. In the workplace, machine learning has the capacity to change how managers spot an employee's talent, how employees share their knowledge and how employers decide whom to promote.

There's no question that technology is drastically changing the way we work, but what will the job market look like by 2050? Will 40% of roles have been lost to automation – as predicted by Oxford university economists Dr Carl Frey and Dr Michael Osborne – or will there still be jobs even if the nature of work is exceptionally different from today? To address these issues, the Guardian hosted a roundtable discussion, in association with professional services firm Deloitte, which brought together academics, authors and IT business experts. The future of work will soon become "the survival of the most adaptable", says Paul Mason, emerging technologies director for Innovate UK. As new technologies fundamentally change the way we work, the jobs that remain will be multifaceted and changeable. "Workers of the future will need to be highly adaptable and juggle three or more different roles at a time," says Anand Chopra-McGowan, head of enterprise new markets for General Assembly.

Stare across the gallery of the Tate Britain at a Turner and you bring with you a quiet murmur of experiences – a family holiday, an orgasm, that morning's news. What you see works in co-ordination with echoes. But what does a computer see? What does it think when it looks at a Turner? Recognition, the winner of the Tate's IK Prize 2016 for digital innovation, asks – and answers – some of these questions. Made up of multiple artificial-intelligence technologies, Recognition makes use of object recognition, facial recognition and composition analysis to pull up-to-the-minute photojournalism from Reuters, then trawls through Tate Britain's vast collection to plonk a comparable picture beside it.

Alleged criminals might not be the only ones to benefit from pleading the Fifth. By falling silent during the Turing test, artificial intelligence (AI) systems can fool human judges into believing they're human, according to a study by machine intelligence researchers from Coventry University. Alan Turing, considered the father of theoretical computer science and AI, devised the Turing test in an attempt to outline what it means for a thing to think. In the test, a human judge or interrogator has a conversation with an unseen entity, which might be a human or a machine. The test posits that the machine can be considered to be "thinking" or "intelligent" if the interrogator is unable to tell whether or not the machine is a human.

Young people will bear the brunt of Artificial Intelligence (AI) fuelled job losses as smart systems undercut entry-level roles in everything from marketing to retail. Machine learning and expert systems will not destroy jobs wholesale, predicts George Zarkadakis, digital lead at advisory firm Willis Towers Watson, but will remove the need for many tasks that employees have traditionally cut their teeth on at the beginning of their careers. Zarkadakis cited a study by consultants McKinsey, which found that just under one third of activities that make up 60 percent of existing jobs will be automated. Unfortunately for new entrants to job markets, the bulk of these activities will be concentrated in starter roles, said Zarkadakis. "We've done some research ourselves and looked at the impact on entry-level jobs. Jobs that graduates get once they leave university. We found that many of the entry-level jobs are very susceptible to complete obliteration," he told The AI Summit in London.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai said on Alphabet's Q1 earnings call: "In the long run, we will evolve in computing from a mobile-first to an AI-first world". This has prompted various speculation on what an AI-first world will look like. Pichai envisages that it will include "assistive" search, "especially on mobile," suggesting that artificial intelligence (AI) will be the platform for on-demand services accessed from any device – including smartphones. Dave Coplin, chief envisioning officer at Microsoft UK spoke at the AI Summit in London. He believes that AI first (AI as a platform) will "change how people relate to tech and to each other."

Machine learning and expert systems will not destroy jobs wholesale, predicts George Zarkadakis, digital lead at advisory firm Willis Towers Watson, but will remove the need for many tasks that employees have traditionally cut their teeth on at the beginning of their careers. Zarkadakis cited a study by consultants McKinsey, which found that just under one third of activities that make up 60 percent of existing jobs will be automated. Unfortunately for new entrants to job markets, the bulk of these activities will be concentrated in starter roles, said Zarkadakis. "We've done some research ourselves and looked at the impact on entry-level jobs. Jobs that graduates get once they leave university. We found that many of the entry-level jobs are very susceptible to complete obliteration," he told The AI Summit in London.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is something of a buzz-phrase across the tech industry these days - but Microsoft's Dave Coplin says that it will come to have a profound impact on society as we know it. In his words, AI "will change everything". Coplin, the company's chief envisioning officer in the UK, was speaking a few days ago at an AI conference in London, where he described it as "the most important technology that anybody on the planet is working on today." "This technology will change how we relate to technology," he said. "It will change how we relate to each other. I would argue that it will even change how we perceive what it means to be human."