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PricewaterhouseCoopers, the large accounting and management consulting firm, released a startling report indicating that workers will be highly impacted by the fast-growing rise of artificial intelligence, robots and related technologies.

Banking and financial services employees, factory workers and office staff will seemingly face the loss of their jobsor need to find a way to reinvent themselves in this brave new world.

The term artificial intelligence is loosely used to describe the ability of a machine to mimic human behavior. AI includes well-known applications, such as Siri, GPS, Spotify, self-driving vehicles and the larger-than-life robots made by Boston Robotics that perform incredible feats.

Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice president of Software Engineering, speaks about Siri during an ... [+] announcement of new products at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference Monday, June 4, 2018, in San Jose, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

While many reports tout the benefits of AI, there are many risks and unintended consequences, including the likelihood of replacing millions of human workers and unethical uses of the technology.For instance, China is using facial recognition to closely scrutinize its citizens who could be punished for certain transgressions. The country has been accused of using facial recognition to profile Muslims in its Xinjiang region. Recently, there were privacy concerns raised about FaceApp, the Russian-backed, face-ageing application.

Bloomberg reports that more than 120 million workers globally will need retraining in the next three years due to artificial intelligences impact on jobs, according to an IBM survey. The amount of individuals who will be impacted is immense. The worlds most advanced cities arent ready for the disruptions of artificial intelligence claims Oliver Wyman, a management consulting firm. It is believed that over 50 million Chinese workers may require retraining as a result of AI-related deployment. The U.S. will be required to retool 11.5 million people in America with skills needed to survive in the workforce. Millions of workers in Brazil, Japan and Germany will need assistance with the changes wrought by AI, robotics and related technology.

While the study claims that employees can learn new skills, its logic is suspect to the realities. In an effort to save billions of dollars in labor costs, Amazon warehouses have thousands of little, cute, orange robots made by Kiva, a robotics company acquired by Amazon for $775 million. The Kiva robots needs only 15 minutes to find, pick and package an order, whereas a human needs about 60-75 minutes to accomplish the same tasks. Ive spoken with workers at Amazon fulfillment centers and they claim that the pace and toll it takes on the human body is too much too handle. Humans simply cant compete against robots due to our inherent limitations.

A Kiva robot drive unit is seen, foreground, before it moves under a stack of merchandise pods. (AP ... [+] Photo/Brandon Bailey)

Mark Cuban, who became a billionaire with his tech company and is now the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, said in a CNBC interview, President Donald Trump should be more aware of tech advancements in machine learning and artificial intelligence and how that will impact Americas future. Cuban said, Im willing to bet that these companies building new plants...this will lead to fewer people being employed.

Computers, intelligent machine, and robots seem like the workforce of the future. And as more and more jobs are replaced by technology, people will have less work to do and ultimately will be sustained by payments from the government, predicts Elon Musk, the cofounder and CEO of Tesla.

AI, robotics and technology will displace millions of workers. It's already happening. AI is used by investment banks, law and accounting firms, hospitals and corporations to displace people involved with rote activities and lower-end, white-collar jobs. If your job can be replaced by AI, it willand youll need a new career.

This has already adversely impacted highly-paid Wall Street professionals including stock and bond traders. These are the people who used to work on the trading floors at investment bank and trade securities for their banks, clients and themselves. It was a very lucrative profession until algorithms, quant-trading software and programs disrupted the business and rendered their skills unnecessarycompared to the fast-acting technology.

There is no hiding from the robots. Well-trained and experienced doctors will be pushed aside by sophisticated robots that can perform delicate surgeries better and read x-rays more efficiently and accurately to detect cancerous cells that cant be readily seen by the human eye.

Shoppers use self checkout machines at a Kroger Co. supermarket in Louisville, Kentucky, ... [+] U.S.Photographer: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg

Truck and cab drivers, cashiers, retail sales associates and people who work in manufacturing plants and factories have and will continue to be replaced by robotics and technology. Driverless vehicles, kiosks in fast food restaurants and self-help, quick-phone scans at stores will soon eliminate most minimum-wage and low-skilled jobs.

This trend will benefit coders and computer engineers. They will be the great beneficiaries of this emergencethat is until AI can learn to code as well asor better than the humans. To be fair, there are and will be new jobs created along with the disruption. Run a search on Google for Jobs and youll see thousands of listings for AI, robotics, coding, data analytics, coding, tech and related postings. The studies are somewhat optimistic and claim that the rise of the machines arent taking away all the jobs. Rather, they will change the descriptions of jobs and add more roles.

Andrew Yang, Democratic presidential hopeful, is one of the few candidates vocalizing concerns about the ascendancy of AI. Yangs official website offers the following:

Advances in automation and Artificial Intelligence (AI) hold the potential to bring about new levels of prosperity humans have never seen. They also hold the potential to disrupt our economies, ruin lives throughout several generations, and, if experts such as Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk are to be believed, destroy humanity.

Billionaire founder of Microsoft and outspoken philanthropist, Bill Gates, has called for a tax on robots due to the disruption that will occur, resulting in the loss of jobs and tax revenue. Right now, the human worker who does, say, $50,000 worth of work in a factory, that income is taxed and you get income tax, social security tax, all those things. If a robot comes in to do the same thing, youd think that wed tax the robot at a similar level, Gates said in an interview with Quartz. "You cross the threshold of job replacement of certain activities of all sorts at once," Gates added. "So, you know, warehouse work, driving, room cleanup, there's quite a few things that are meaningful job categories that, certainly in the next 20 years [will go away]."

Technology is advancing at a pace never before seen in human history. Even those developing it, dont fully understand how it works or what direction its taking. Recent advances in machine learning have shown that a computergiven certain directivescan learn tasks much faster than humans thought possible even a year ago. Were heading into this new world with no idea on how to regulate it, and a regulatory system thats designed for technology thats much less sophisticated than what were facing in the near future.

Technological innovation shouldnt be stopped, but it should be monitored and analyzed to make sure we dont move past a point of no return. This will require cooperation between the government and private industry to ensure that developing technologies can continue to improve our lives without destroying them.

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Unbridled Adoption Of Artificial Intelligence May Result In Millions Of Job Losses And Require Massive Retraining For Those Impacted - Forbes