1 There will still be some jobs

How many of us will really lose our jobs to robots? A 2018 British Academy and Royal Society report found that 10 to 30 per cent of UK jobs are “highly automatable”, meaning they could soon be done by machines. Manufacturing has already encountered substantial losses; fast food preparation, admin and accountancy jobs are up next, according to the report, while drivers will eventually be replaced by autonomous vehicles. However, the report also predicts that humans will hold on to some lower-paid and manual jobs, such as caring for children and the elderly, and plumbing.

A look to the past suggests we’re unlikely to lose all of our jobs, says Dr Luke Martinelli, a policy researcher at the University of Bath. This was predicted in the 19th Century and again in the 1930s, and it didn’t happen. “So there’s a [view] that humans will always have work – we’ll just do different things,” says Martinelli, suggesting we’ll keep the more creative jobs and those requiring interpersonal skills. But then, he adds, the more pessimistic stance is that robots could feasibly do anything. On the creative front, for example, machine learning systems are already churning out paintings, sculptures, music and even film trailers that are indistinguishable from human art.

Taken to its logical conclusion, this scenario would eventually see us bowing down before our robot rulers. In fact, New Zealand already has a virtual, AI-powered politician called Sam, who can talk – without mistruth or misrepresentation – to prospective voters, and is reportedly running for parliament in the next election. Maybe that’s one job that robots could do better...