Artificial intelligence (AI) is wide-ranging branch of computer science concerned with building smart machines capable of performing tasks that typically require human intelligence. AI is an interdisciplinary science with multiple approaches, but advancements in machine learning and deep learning are creating a paradigm shift in virtually every sector of the tech industry.

Developments in artificial intelligence and robotics have far-reaching economic and sociopolitical consequences, with some of them already materialising today. Still, the implications of further progress in these fields are not well understood. What will the impact on human society be if AI at some point even becomes superior in all relevant cognitive, physical and perhaps even emotional capacities?

How will the increased productivity and income spurred by AI, robotics and related technologies be distributed between labour and capital? Fear of massive disruption of labour markets through progress in AI is often countered with the argument that previous technological revolutions always led to the creation of new occupations and tasks, many of which had not even been foreseen. Could this time be different?