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Many commentators now consider that humanity stands on the (1) .......... of a fourth industrial revolution — one that, by the middle of this century, will have transformed the world in ways both profound and irreversible.
Artificial intelligence is producing machines capable not only of processing information at speeds far exceeding the human brain, (2) .......... also of refining their own performance through accumulated experience. Research in robotics advances in (3) .......... that would have seemed implausible even a decade ago, with increased miniaturisation enabling trials in domains as distinctly human as the service industries. In the healthcare (4) .......... , for instance, machine learning algorithms can already diagnose conditions from photographs or the characteristic acoustics of a patient's cough, while robotic surgery has become (5) .......... in the United States and elder-care robots are deployed routinely in Japan.
Whether these developments are regarded as a cause for optimism or anxiety depends entirely on one's perspective. Certain futurists contend that automation will not displace workers wholesale but will instead eliminate the most repetitive elements of their roles — (6) .......... liberating human attention for more stimulating and creative endeavours. Reduced working hours and commuting times might follow, freeing individuals to (7) .......... their own interests. The (8) .......... increase in productivity that automation generates would, in this vision, yield sufficient surplus wealth to sustain the young, the elderly and those unable to participate in the workforce.