An engineer at the AgiBot factory in Shanghai, China, where the 5,000th mass-produced humanoid robot had rolled off the production line. An engineer at the AgiBot factory in Shanghai, China, where the 5,000th mass-produced humanoid robot had rolled off the production line. How close are we to the sci-fi vision of autonomous humanoid robots? C hen Liang, the founder of Guchi Robotics, an automation company headquartered in Shanghai, is a tall, heavy-set man in his mid-40s with square-rimmed glasses. His everyday manner is calm and understated, but when he is in his element - up close with the technology he builds, or in business meetings discussing the imminent replacement of human workers by robots - he wears an exuberant smile that brings to mind an intern on his first day at his dream job. Guchi makes the machines that install wheels, dashboards and windows for many of the top Chinese car brands, including BYD and Nio. He took the name from the Chinese word, "steadfast intelligence", though the fact that it sounded like an Italian luxury brand was not entirely unwelcome. For the better part of two decades, Chen has tried to solve what, to him, is an engineering problem: how to eliminate - or, in his view, liberate - as many workers in car factories as technologically possible. Late last year, I visited him at Guchi headquarters on the western outskirts of Shanghai. Next to the head office are several warehouses where Guchi's engineers tinker with robots to fit the specifications of their customers. Chen, an engineer by training, founded Guchi in 2019 with the aim of tackling the hardest automation task in the car factory: "final assembly", the last leg of production, when all the composite pieces - the dashboard, windows, wheels and seat cushions - come together. At present, his robots can mount wheels, dashboards and windows on to a car without any human intervention, but 80% of the final assembly, he estimates, has yet to be automated. That is what Chen has set his sights on. As in much of the world, AI has become part of everyday life in China . But what most excites Chinese politicians and industrialists are the strides being made in the field of robotics, which, when combined with advances in AI, could revolutionise the world of work.

Modern surgery has gone from long incisions to tiny cuts guided by robots and AI. In the process, however, surgeons have lost something vital: the chance to feel inside the body directly. Without palpation, it becomes harder to detect tissue abnormalities during an operation. A group of surgeons and engineers across Europe is now trying to bring back this vital aspect of surgery. Working within an EU-funded research collaboration called PALPABLE, they are developing a soft robotic "fingertip" that can sense how firm or soft tissue is during minimally invasive and robotic surgery.

During a summer internship at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Ivy Mahncke, an undergraduate student of robotics engineering at Olin College of Engineering, took a hands-on approach to testing algorithms for underwater navigation. She first discovered her love for working with underwater robotics as an intern at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in 2024. Drawn by the chance to tackle new problems and cutting-edge algorithm development, Mahncke began an internship with Lincoln Laboratory's Advanced Undersea Systems and Technology Group in 2025. Mahncke spent the summer developing and troubleshooting an algorithm that would help a human diver and robotic vehicle collaboratively navigate underwater. The lack of traditional localization aids -- such as the Global Positioning System, or GPS -- in an underwater environment posed challenges for navigation that Mahncke and her mentors sought to overcome.

In physical systems where errors carry tangible consequences, AI creates value through reliability and first-time-right performance. The impact of artificial intelligence extends far beyond the digital world and into our everyday lives, across the cars we drive, the appliances in our homes, and medical devices that keep people alive. More and more, product engineers are turning to AI to enhance, validate, and streamline the design of the items that furnish our worlds. The use of AI in product engineering follows a disciplined and pragmatic trajectory. A significant majority of engineering organizations are increasing their AI investment, according to our survey, but they are doing so in a measured way. This approach reflects the priorities typical of product engineers.

Corporate employees said Amazon's race to roll out AI is leading to surveillance, slop and'more work for everyone'. When Dina, a software developer based in New York, joined Amazon two years ago, her job was to write code. The internal AI tool she's expected to use, called Kiro, frequently hallucinates and generates flawed code, she says. Then she has to dig through and correct the sloppy code it creates, or just revert all changes and start again. She says it feels like "trying to AI my way out of a problem that AI caused".

The technology may not be ready to replace workers, but that isn't stopping execs from pushing forward anyway. Late last month, at an event in Washington, D.C., Andrew Yang delivered a bleak message. "I have bad news, America," he told the crowd. The Fuckening is the name that Yang, a former presidential candidate, has given to AI's disembowelment of the workforce. As he sees it, millions of knowledge workers will soon lose their job, personal-bankruptcy rates will spike, and entire downtowns will turn vacant as offices hollow out.

San Francisco's AI startups are pushing workers to grind endlessly, hinting at pressures soon hitting other sectors Not long after the terms "996" and "grindcore" entered the popular lexicon, people started telling me stories about what was happening at startups in San Francisco, ground zero for the artificial intelligence economy. There was the one about the founder who hadn't taken a weekend off in more than six months. The woman who joked that she'd given up her social life to work at a prestigious AI company. Or the employees who had started taking their shoes off in the office because, well, if you were going to be there for at least 12 hours a day, six days a week, wouldn't you rather be wearing slippers? "If you go to a cafe on a Sunday, everyone is working," says Sanju Lokuhitige, the co-founder of Mythril, a pre-seed-stage AI startup, who moved to San Francisco in November to be closer to the action.

Have you retrained or moved careers due to your previous career path being at risk of an artificial intelligence takeover? Please include as much detail as possible. Did you have a dream profession that you have decided not to pursue because of fears it will be thwarted by AI? Optional Please include as much detail as possible.