Kathleen is a principal analyst, managing partner, and founder of Cognilytica, an AI research and advisory firm, and co-host of the popular AI Today podcast. She is a serial entrepreneur, savvy marketer, AI and Machine Learning expert, and tech industry connector. Kathleen spent many years as the Content and Innovation Director for TechBreakfast, the largest monthly morning tech meetup in the nation with over 50,000 members and 3000 attendees at the monthly events across the US. In addition she is a SXSW Innovation Awards Judge and AI / Hardware Meetup organizer. As a master facilitator and connector, who is well connected in the technology industry, Kathleen regularly meets with innovators in key markets and gets the opportunity to see the latest and newest technologies from game changing companies.

As the world grows increasingly connected, growing concern regarding the influence of artificial intelligence (AI) has been bubbling to the surface, affecting perceptions by industries big and small along with the general populace. Spurred on by sensationalized media predictions of AI taking over human decision-making and silver-screen tales of robot revolutions, there is a fear of allowing AI or its cousin, the Internet of Things (IoT), into our lives. Here is AI's man behind the curtain. One of the biggest sticking points is the popular – yet mistaken – notion that AI will cost people their jobs. In truth, the situation is just the opposite.

Artificial intelligence is often perceived as the harbinger of a new age in which robots take over the majority of our jobs. But there is another less alarmist perspective to this that is given much less airtime. Could AI, in fact, create jobs? There is no doubt that automation will cause some jobs to vanish. Equally, it will change some jobs beyond recognition. AI is such a driving force in modern technology that there will be changes to roles across the entire job market, even professional jobs which had, until now, seemed exempt from such automation.

AI brings mixed emotions and opinions when referenced in the context of jobs. If you ask the question "Do you think Artificial Intelligence will be a net job killer or net job creator?" to colleagues, friends, or strangers you're bound to get some very strong opinions on this subject. For sure you will hear an interesting and conflicting set of opinions that range from "AI will destroy all jobs as we know it" to "AI will enable us to work better and do new things we've never been able to do". If you look at various economic and analyst predictions, their assessments are all over the place, ranging from dramatic job losses across most economic sectors to large increases in employment due to dramatic increases in job productivity. Of course, as with everything, the true answer will be somewhere in the middle.

Conventional wisdom has it that a coming onslaught of industrial robots will throw millions of current factory workers out of their jobs. The direst predictions envision whole classes of people permanently locked out of the working world. As I detailed in one of my earliest articles, robots eliminating manufacturing jobs is nothing new. It's been going on for decades. But as technological development accelerates and robots become better and cheaper, the risk to current employment is intensified.

One in three employees believe artificial intelligence (AI) will increase the number of jobs available in the future, with millennials especially positive, reveals CCS Insight's latest employee enterprise survey. The survey of more than 650 employees, across five regions, reaffirmed that employees see artificial intelligence as the technology that will cause the most disruption to the workplace over the next few years. More than half of employees expect artificial intelligence to affect their jobs within three years, with 70 percent feeling it will do so within the next decade. The automation of mundane work tasks, the increasing performance of machinery and the use of assistive AI features in productivity and collaboration applications were cited by respondents as the top uses and benefits of the technology in the future. CCS Insight's vice president of enterprise research, Nick McQuire, comments, 'Despite many reports painting a bleak outlook for the impact of AI on the job market in recent months, our survey reveals rather positive attitudes to the technology, both as a job creator and an enabler of work.

Artificial intelligence has faced a renewed wave of scrutiny from some of the world's most prominent business leaders in recent days as concerns over its potential to create job losses grows. Inbenta argues that rather than being a job killer, AI will in fact be a job creator. It was billed as the end for bank tellers. On 27 June 1967, British comedian Reg Varney inserted a paper cheque into a machine in Enfield, North London and the ATM was born. Critics claimed its birth would facilitate the death of millions of banking jobs around the world.