Artificial intelligence (AI) is already infiltrating all industry verticals (and business processes) – as well as the home. Amazon's Alexa can order you an Uber, tell you the weather, pull up your dinner recipe – and even turn on your oven to begin your meal preparation. This is just the beginning. In fact, AI is projected to grow to become over a $5 billion market by 2020. So, what is the force behind this unavoidable AI phenomenon and momentum?

Rogue One, the latest in the Star Wars franchise, has had mixed reviews but features one undisputed star: K-2SO, a gangly robot with the best lines. Movies of the distant future always tap into current anxieties, and the latest alarm is that the robots are coming. Droids may not conquer the world, but they will take over its work--white-collar as well as blue-collar. Could these filmmakers know something we don't? Previous scares, such as when TIME magazine reported on "the automation jobless" in the early 1960s, were just that.