The so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), which we are living through the early stages of, will fully embed existing and future digital technologies in society. As with earlier such shifts, the last of which was the ongoing'Digital Revolution' that began in the 1980s, there are positives and negatives. Two troubling aspects are the rise of decision-making by artificial intelligence (AI)-powered algorithms, and automation in the workplace by robots and AI. 'Traditional' algorithms – formal descriptions of how people or computers should perform tasks – have been in widespread use for years. Universities, for example, use'degree algorithms' to calculate final degree classifications from students' assessed work. But AI-algorithms are created by feeding a computer program huge amounts of data and'teaching' it how to behave.

Harry Farmer is a policy researcher at Involve. He is fascinated by the power of deliberative processes to enable governments to negotiate controversial policy decisions - particularly those presented by emerging technologies and demographic change. He currently works primarily on the Citizens for Public Service programme. Involve submitted evidence to the Science and Technology Select Committee's inquiry on Robotics and Artificial Intelligence. In our submission, we contend that the government's success in harnessing the potential of robotics and AI will depend to a large extent on its ability to develop policy that is sensitive to, and informed by, public concerns about these new technologies.