'The Internet of Things in people will prevent rise of the robots'

'Any concerns we have about the rise of the robots taking our jobs is not really an issue because we will be those robots,' Ade McCormack tells Computing IT Leaders Summit

The Internet of Things will eventually get to a point where people are augmented with web-enabled devices to such an extent that humans won't have to worry about jobs being taken by robots, because humans will be robots themselves to some extent.

That's according to digital strategist and near futurist Ade McCormack, who was addressing CIOs at Computing's IT Leaders Summit at Home House, central London, today.

"The past determines our future, so we only have to look at the past to see where the future is going. The internet came along, the internet allowed people to communicate," he said.

"Now we're talking about the Internet of Things and how your household devices will be talking behind your back and eventually the Internet of Things will be the Internet of Things in people. We ourselves are going to be walking collections of IP addresses," said McCormack, who argued that we don't need to be concerned about losing jobs to robots, because we will be the robots.

"So any concerns we have about the rise of the robots taking our jobs is not really an issue because we will be those robots, in some capacity," he said.

All of this will change how humans gain and share information, McCormack said, with data being directly zapped into our brains.

"This kind of augmented man, Homo Extensis, I don't think is actually an anthropological step change, and that's very significant. When more people turn up to work, when customers turn up to your business, they'll want your services delivered straight to the neocortex," he said, adding that businesses will need to work out how to capture and then harness this data.

"Increasingly, they'll be wearing devices and they'll be walking along with a comet's tail of data behind them and it's your job to catch that," argued McCormack.

"Then the question is, whose data is it? In a digital economy, data is the new currency but we way not be able to keep that data in our CRM systems, governments may have to bid on their citizens' data," he said.

"So the whole question of data value is up in the air as the next generation of users realise the value of their digital footprint," McCormack concluded.