Will robots take your job?

Science fiction has mused about artificial intelligence for decades. But in the past couple of years, the prospect of A.I. has become a matter of not if, but when. What seems clear is that for better or worse, it will change our lives profoundly.

We explored the development of artificial intelligence on last week's program with Ira Basen's documentary, "Into the Deep: The promise and peril of Artificial Intelligence."

He focused on how machines are learning to "think" like humans. The newest form of A.I. is called "deep learning" — and it is attracting billions of dollars of research money. 

Today, machines are able to "think" more like humans than most scientists ever imagined. They are moving into our workplaces, homes, cars, hospitals and schools, and they are making decisions for us. Big ones.

After we aired that documentary, Dimitar Raykov in Sofia, Bulgaria sent us this e-mail: 

"Hi!  I am one of the creators of a website called 'Will Robots Take My Job?' We launched it just a week ago, and couldn't imagine better reception. Many publications have written about us, and we have had more than four-and-a-half-million page views.

"Our site is simple - it answers the question — 'How susceptible is your job to computerization?'

"It is based on a very popular report called, 'The Future of Employment' by Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne.

"We thought you might be interested."

If you would like to find out whether your job is at risk from artificial intelligence, check out Dimitar's site at willrobotstakemyjob.com.