One day, the robots will take over.

That's what George Mason University Robin D. Hanson theorizes about in his upcoming "The Age of Em: Work, Love and Life when Robots Rule the Earth."

At the center of Hanson's theory is "emulated mind," or "em" for short. Basically, he says that one day — in 400 to 600 years, by his estimation — we're going to be able to create a perfect virtual replica of the human brain, which will yield the equivalent of a mind, kind of like Scarlett Johansson's character in "Her."

Those "ems" could exist solely in virtual space, or they could have physical bodies of some sort, depending on what tasks they're being built for. Hanson says that this will be equivalent to the Agricultural or Industrial Revolution: a complete change in the way society is organized.

1: Humans will retire.

The thing about robots, once they can do tasks that require high levels of intelligence, is that they're simply going to out-compete people.

Humans "may still be rich, owning most of this robotic economy," Hanson says, "but they will still have to retire and live off their retirement payment."

It's like when an individual person gets older and decides to retire, he says, but in this case it's the entire human race. That will open up a ton of leisure time in the best-case scenario.

The worst case (or at least a very bad one) is that only a few individuals or corporations own the world's robot labor, meaning that lots of people would be locked out of the economy, making retirement a much less appealing option. That would be pretty dystopian.

Joaquin Phoenix in "Her." Warner Bros. 2. Robots could be immortal.

"Compared to humans," Hanson says, robots "can be immortal, in that they can be infinitely repaired."

But, Hanson says, we don't infinitely repair most cars and houses, so it's not like every robot will be repaired to the point of immortality. But some certainly could.

3. Nature will be at more at risk than ever.

"We often love nature, but in addition, we are reasonably afraid that if we kill nature, we will die, because our biological bodies. depend in many ways on nature," Hanson says.

But mechanical life forms won't depend on oxygen in the same way we do.

"If our robots are made in factories, they may love nature and want to save it, but they need not fear that killing nature will kill them," Hanson says. "So that puts nature more at risk."

4. It will be possible to rapidly expand the population (of robots).

It takes a long time for a human being to develop from birth to being able to play a role in the economy. If you're getting your PhD, it could be into your 30s.

But "robots don't have to be trained and raised from adulthood," Hanson says. In theory, they could be manufactured with valuable skill sets, which would allow the labor force to grow rapidly.

5. The economy will go nuts.

Because of all the labor offered by a robot population, it will be possible to get an unprecedented amount of work done.

"Instead of doubling every fifteen years like today," Hanson says, the global economy "could double every month or week of even faster."

Total economic growth could speed up by 60 to 250 times the current rate.