Robots may take four million British jobs in the private sector within the next decade, some business leaders believe. Those surveyed for by YouGov for the Royal Society of Arts said 15 per cent of all jobs were under threat. The most vulnerable fields are finance and accounting, transportation and distribution, manufacturing and marketing and public relations, the survey found. But the research was not all doom and gloom, noting that technological advance creates new jobs, partly because increased productivity reduces prices freeing up consumers to spend money elsewhere in the economy. The RSA added that AI and robotics will mostly automate individual tasks rather than replace whole jobs.

Robots and artificial intelligence will'break the social ladder' and could cost up to 15 million jobs, new research has found. A study found that the increasing automation of jobs will hit poorer workers hardest and will further set back social mobility unless urgent action is taken. The research warns that automation could create a society in which an elite, high-skilled group dominates the higher echelon of society while a lower-skilled, low-income group is left with little opportunity to climb the social ladder. Robots and artificial intelligence will'break the social ladder' and could cost up to 15 million jobs, new research has found (stock image) Robots could take jobs from human workers and potentially spark an employment crisis, the boss of John Lewis warned last month. Sir Charlie Mayfield, 50, said new technologies, such as robots, would create massive changes across industry, with British businesses potentially among the hardest hit.