Faith Popcorn is a futurist, author and chief executive of BrainReserve, a strategic consultancy.

Yes, it’s possible that thousands of us will be robo-replaced: Oxford University reports that 47 percent of workers in the United States will be automated into unemployment within two decades. Pepper, a humanoid robot, is snagging receptionist jobs. The artificial intelligence service Brain.fm is composing the music that our Olympians listen to as they train. And the program Quill is writing financial news. A guaranteed minimum income will come to America soon enough when salaries are a thing of the past.

Yes, it’s possible that thousands of us will be robo-replaced.

At the same time, however, voice recognition and transcription software will allow us to speak, not write, our Great American Novels. Translation apps are on the verge of making real-time conversations flow around the globe. Watson, the IBM supercomputer, may have saved a Tokyo woman’s life, diagnosing her rare leukemia when doctors couldn’t. Robots like Robear (a bearlike nursing-care assistant) will alleviate loneliness when our life span stretches to age 150. With our minds freed from the drudgery of work, perhaps we’ll elevate our society and revel in a new Golden Age. Count me in.



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