Technology has always been a disruptive force that creates new wealth while overturning existing industries and displacing the workers that serve them. On balance, this evolutionary process has created more wealth and more jobs than it’s destroyed. However, I’ve begun to wonder recently whether developments in automation, artificial intelligence, and machine-to-machine communication are leading us towards a “kinder, gentler” robot apocalypse in the form of an economy that can get along perfectly well without us.