We have nothing to fear from the robot takeover

Robots in the workplace won't cause mass unemployment. On the contrary, says Matthew Lynn - they'll create whole new industries.

The driverless car is close to production. Robot vacuum cleaners are going mainstream. New programs are hitting the market to do fairly repetitive tasks, such as para-legal work, accounting, or diagnosing a medical condition and prescribing the right medication.

After decades in which robots were the stuff of science fiction, advances in computing and artificial intelligence are now making them reality.

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Matthew Lynn

Matthew Lynn is a columnist for Bloomberg, and writes weekly commentary syndicated in papers such as the Daily Telegraph, Die Welt, the Sydney Morning Herald, the South China Morning Post and the Miami Herald. He is also an associate editor of Spectator Business, and a regular contributor to The Spectator. Before that, he worked for the business section of the Sunday Times for ten years. 

He has written books on finance and financial topics, including Bust: Greece, The Euro and The Sovereign Debt Crisis and The Long Depression: The Slump of 2008 to 2031. Matthew is also the author of the Death Force series of military thrillers and the founder of Lume Books, an independent publisher.