Foxconn is currently replacing 60,000 human workers with robots

[barryqwalsh]

Indeed, such is the expected impact of workplace robots that EU officials are starting to consider whether certain robots should have limited 'rights' as workers. Last month, the European Parliament's committee on legal affairs drafted a motion urging that "the most sophisticated autonomous robots could be established as having the status of electronic persons with specific rights and obligations".

Some small part of this surely turned up in the Brexit vote. It is also arguably wrapped into the rise of Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, Marine Le Pen and others who are deeply angry at the way things are going.

But the 'system' that's causing civil disquiet is more than the European Union, Barack Obama or Angela Merkel. The 'system' is also the new world order of technology and automation.

People feel disenfranchised, and they don't fully know why.



Robots helped to cause Brexit - and they're not done yet - Independent.ie