Horror stories about artificial intelligence abound: whether it’s robots stealing our jobs, or smart appliances spying on you. Coping with the rapid rise of automation has become a grand challenge for the 21st Century, identified by academics and researchers across the globe.

The coming era of intelligent machines can sometimes sound terrifying, and even dystopian. Will it actually be, though? Not at all, says chess grandmaster and former World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov.

Kasparov has direct experience of being humbled by a machine, so it's perhaps surprising that he has a pro-AI outlook. In the 1990s, the chess virtuoso made headlines when he played matches against IBM’s supercomputer, Deep Blue. He won once, but then lost in the rematch. Since then Kasparov has gone on to become something of an AI authority: his new book, Deep Thinking: Where Machine Intelligence Ends and Human Creativity Begins was released last month.

The BBC Click team caught up with Kasparov at this year’s Hay Festival in the UK. In the video above, watch what he had to say about the inevitability of AI’s rise – and why it could actually be a revolution that will help humans work even better.

Do you agree with what Kasparov has to say? Let us know on Facebook, or Twitter.

Watch more from Click at the Hay Festival on BBC World News.

If you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter, called “If You Only Read 6 Things This Week”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.