The question "Will a robot take my job?" is never too far from any discussion about the role of artificial intelligence and machine learning in the future economy. The answer to this simple, justified question is anything but clear, and continues to divide experts in economics and business trends. As Time Magazine noted in a 2020 piece, a group of economists from MIT and Boston University estimates that 42% of the 40 million jobs lost during the COVID-19 pandemic will be permanently replaced by AI and machines, adding to the 400,000 jobs already lost to automation in U.S. factories between 1990 and 2007. Separately, however, a 2020 MIT paper titled'Artificial Intelligence and Future of Work' paints a more optimistic picture, positing that the rigid, single-task thinking still exhibited by many AI applications will inhibit its ability to replace creative, lateral-thinking professions. "For the foreseeable future," the authors say, "the most promising uses of AI will not involve computers replacing people, but rather, people and computers working together--as "superminds"--to do both cognitive and physical tasks that could not be done before."