Skip to main content current edition: International edition The Guardian - Back to home Become a supporter Subscribe Find a job Jobs Sign in Search Show More Close with google Technology sector The Observer Artificial intelligence: ‘Homo sapiens will be split into a handful of gods and the rest of us’ A new report suggests that the marriage of AI and robotics could replace so many jobs that the era of mass employment could come to an end Robots manufactured by Shaanxi Jiuli Robot Manufacturing Co on display at a technology fair in Shanghai display at a technology fair in Shanghai Photograph: Imaginechina/Corbis Technology sector The Observer Artificial intelligence: ‘Homo sapiens will be split into a handful of gods and the rest of us’ A new report suggests that the marriage of AI and robotics could replace so many jobs that the era of mass employment could come to an end Charles Arthur Charles Arthur @charlesarthur Sat 7 Nov ‘15 16.
18 GMT Last modified on Sat 2 Dec ‘17 05.
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 And yet we keep on creating new job categories.
 However, there are still concerns that the combination of artificial intelligence (AI) – which is able to make logical inferences about its surroundings and experience – married to ever-improving robotics, will wipe away entire swaths of work and radically reshape society.
 “The poster child for automation is agriculture,” says Calum Chace, author of Surviving AI and the novel Pandora’s Brain.
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” What if we’re the horses to AI’s humans?
 To those who don’t watch the industry closely, it’s hard to see how quickly the combination of robotics and artificial intelligence is advancing.
 Last week a team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology released a video showing a tiny drone flying through a lightly forested area at 30mph, avoiding the trees – all without a pilot, using only its onboard processors.