A robot looks at visitors at the Soft Bank robotics stand at the Cebit technology fair in Hannover on March 20, 2017. The Digital Business fair CEBIT in Hanover with Japan as partner country runs from March 20 until March 24. I've written a number of times about the impact automation will have on both the wider world and on the way we work, and am broadly speaking optimistic about the role new technologies will play in the labor market. Indeed, a recent paper highlighted the minimal impact technology has had on the amount of jobs created in recent economic recoveries. Of course, this doesn't stop a great many articles emerging in the past few months highlighting the huge (negative) impact automation will have.

In January, I started a weekly newsletter on the impact automation (AI and robotics) is having on jobs. I did this mostly because I wanted to keep better track of what's happening in this space, and I thought that a weekly publication deadline might help me do this. I'm only six weeks in, and there have already been so many developments in the field that I have to be selective about what I include. Writing about this stuff week on week, several trends have emerged that paint a picture of a world waking up to the huge changes automation is going to bring. Here are some of the ways these trends have unfolded so far in 2017.