Editor's note: Throughout 2017, NextBillion is organizing content around a monthly theme, dedicating special attention to a specific sector alongside our broader coverage. This post is part of our focus on entrepreneurship for the month of July. The first part of that dystopian vision has already come to pass, as the constant procession of new AI and robotics breakthroughs in recent years demonstrates (see the links above). The second part – the mass job losses – has fortunately not yet arrived. But if you believe the emerging consensus of the economists and futurists who study these things, it won't be long before it does.