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Robots threaten the human workforce, but their ubiquity and growing competence make them crucial to the modern economy.

Robots threaten the human workforce, but their ubiquity and growing competence make them crucial to the modern economy. In 1961 General Motors installed the first Unimate at one of its plants. It was a one-armed robot resembling a small tank that was used for tasks like welding. Now, as Tim Harford explains, the world鈥檚 robot population is expanding rapidly (the robot 鈥渂irth rate鈥 is almost doubling every five years) and, coupled with rapid advances in artificial intelligence, robots are changing the world of work in unexpected ways.

(Photo: Robot, Credit: Toru Yamanaka/Getty Images)

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9 minutes

Last on

Tue 7 Mar 2017 23:50GMT

Sources and related links

Nick Bostrum - Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies, OUP, 2014

Klaus Schwab - The Fourth Industrial Revolution, World Economic Forum, 2016

Broadcasts

  • Sat 4 Mar 2017 19:50GMT
  • Sun 5 Mar 2017 11:50GMT
  • Mon 6 Mar 2017 04:50GMT
  • Tue 7 Mar 2017 23:50GMT

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