8. Robots and Automation: rise of the AI machinesSummary: Up to 800 million, or 50%, of world jobs could be at risk of replacement through automation by 2030-35. The cost of industrial robots fell 27% from 2005-14and is expected to decrease a further 22% by 2025E. On the flipside, the industrial robot market size is rising from US$38bn in 2016 to US$71bn by 2023E driven byrobotic process automation (RPA), speed factories and other use-cases. We also enter the 2020s with underlying trends in Big Data & AI accelerating towards theexponential threshold of ‘technological singularity’.