Automated control systems were one of the most disruptive applications of industrial technology in the 20th century. The ability to control workflows and processes based on specific inputs and outputs streamlined even the most complex manufacturing processes. These systems, however, need specific parameters and, in some cases, require extensive human oversight and planning to ensure optimal execution. Innovations in AI training methodologies are pushing past these limitations to produce the next wave of disruption to industrial technology: autonomous systems. Autonomous machines do more than address the limitations of automated systems, however.

"I don't think Homo sapiens-type people will exist in 10 or 20 years' time," Getnet Assefa, 31, speculates as he gazes into the reconstructed eye sockets of Lucy, one of the oldest and most famous hominid skeletons known, at the National Museum of Ethiopia. "Slowly the biological species will disappear and then we will become a fully synthetic species," Assefa says. "Perception, memory, emotion, intelligence, dreams--everything that we value now--will not be there," he adds. Assefa is a computer scientist, a futurist, and a utopian--but a pragmatic one at that. He is founder and chief executive of iCog, the first artificial intelligence (AI) lab in Ethiopia, and a stone's throw from the home of Lucy. Their desks are cluttered with electronic components and dismembered robot body parts, from a soccer-playing bot called Abebe to a miniature robo-Einstein.

Machines have never replaced humans before, and they probably aren't doing so right now, argues Noah Smith Of all the economic questions being debated today, the most frightening one is, "Will the robots take our jobs?" This nightmare scenario comes in several flavors. The extreme version is that automation simply makes human workers obsolete, just as cars made horses redundant. A less apocalyptic possibility is what economists call "skill-biased technological change" -- people who are technically savvy, mentally flexible and educated will reap greater and greater rewards, while everyone else sees their wages decline. These two scenarios might look different on paper, but the net result is largely the same -- a very big portion of humanity would be either be impoverished or reduced to living off of the government dole.