They call it the "lights out factory." A manufacturing complex run by the Japanese company FANUC, it spans 22 facilities producing 23,000 computer parts each month for companies like Tesla and Apple. The plant runs close to 24 hours a day, every day of the year. Bill de Blasio is the mayor of New York City and a candidate for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. The complex seems to run so smoothly, it might take a moment to realize that something's missing: human workers. FANUC's factory is 100 percent automated, with robots going "unsupervised" by a human for as many as 30 days at a time.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is simply an attempt to create machines that mimic the human mind. Although AI has become the buzzword in tech circles in recent times, it's not a new thing. Remember when Deep Blue beat the world best chess player in 1997? The main idea behind AI is to perform repetitive, monotonous and possibly dangerous tasks with machines. Much of humanity will now be free to focus on higher intellectual pursuits that promise a better life. AI can deliver results with precision and accuracy unmatched by humans and tirelessly too.

Steve Woods is co-founder and CTO of Nudge.ai, a relationship intelligence platform. When the machines took over farming, a new set of industrial jobs blossomed. When the robots took over the factories, we moved to IT jobs that had never previously existed. Now that AI is taking over another swath of jobs, a wave of as-of-yet-unheard-of jobs, will soon flourish. The thinking that leads to this conclusion has a long, decorated history going back to Joseph Schumpeter's description of creative destruction in the 1940s.

Steve Woods is co-founder and CTO of Nudge.ai, a relationship intelligence platform. When the machines took over farming, a new set of industrial jobs blossomed. When the robots took over the factories, we moved to IT jobs that had never previously existed. Now that AI is taking over another swath of jobs, a wave of as-of-yet-unheard-of jobs, will soon flourish. The thinking that leads to this conclusion has a long, decorated history going back to Joseph Schumpeter's description of creative destruction in the 1940s.

Twenty years ago, setting up a timer to record on a tape your favourite TV show using a VCR device or recording a message on your voicemail was a total success in technology automation. Even the simple task of programming a digital alarm clock to wake us up at a certain time in the morning stopped being rocket science for some of us, fulfilling an inner desire to be part of a society that was unstoppably shifting into a digital transformation. This is just a small slice of how technology automation has changed over the past 20 years, and I assume we can all acknowledge that AI is gaining momentum, albeit regulatory authorities, legislators and lawyers not being fully sure how to adapt or embrace the change that's currently happening. Artificial Intelligence is here, it's the hot topic or the popular kid everyone wants to play in the park with. AI and automation are bringing us daily benefits; Internet and Big Data are becoming an essential part of both our work and private lives and we now have the capacity to collect huge sums of information too cumbersome for a person to process.

Posted: 24 October 2016 By Dr. Attila Y. Ilman In the not-so-distant future, artificial intelligence and robots will take care of routine tasks. Factories will be full of robots, cars will drive autonomously and software will take care of many office tasks. Most observers expect humans to be replaced by robots and imagine a future with billions of unemployed people. These pessimists even propose new welfare systems to take care of these unfortunate humans. In reality, there is absolutely no proof with regard to the negative impact of technology on human employment. On the contrary, human history is full of examples of technology creating new job opportunities.

In the not-so-distant future, artificial intelligence and robots will take care of routine tasks. Factories will be full of robots, cars will drive autonomously and software will take care of many office tasks. Most observers expect humans to be replaced by robots and imagine a future with billions of unemployed people. These pessimists even propose new welfare systems to take care of these unfortunate humans. In reality, there is absolutely no proof with regard to the negative impact of technology on human employment. On the contrary, human history is full of examples of technology creating new job opportunities.

From self-driving vehicles and semi-autonomous robots to intelligent algorithms and predictive analytic tools, machines are increasingly capable of performing a wide range of jobs that have long been human domains. A 2013 study by researchers at Oxford University posited that as many as 47% of all jobs in the United States are at risk of "computerization." And many respondents in a recent Pew Research Center canvassing of technology experts predicted that advances in robotics and computing applications will result in a net displacement of jobs over the coming decades – with potentially profound implications for both workers and society as a whole. The ultimate extent to which robots and algorithms intrude on the human workforce will depend on a host of factors, but many Americans expect that this shift will become reality over the next half-century. In a national survey by Pew Research Center conducted June 10-July 12, 2015, among 2,001 adults, fully 65% of Americans expect that within 50 years robots and computers will "definitely" or "probably" do much of the work currently done by humans.