Robotic systems work on the chassis of a car during an automated stage of production at the Jaguar Land Rover factory (Leon Neal/Getty Images)

Automation is constantly being heralded as the reason for job losses in various industries but one expert believes there is a silver lining.

Rich Walker, the company director of robotics firm Shadow Robot Company, has gone on the record to say the introduction of artificial intelligence into the workplace will free up workers to take on more interesting jobs.

Speaking to Express.co.uk, Mr Walker explained that current working practices are not as efficient as they could be. In some areas specifically manufacturing adding in smart robots would allow humans to take on more complex tasks.

Most people in manufacturing industries spend most of their time picking things up and putting them down again, he told the site.

They do this over and over again all day every day. Even in an automated production line, there will be lots of people giving it parts.

This isnt a very efficient way for people to work, he said.

Most of the companies we talk to that do that say we have lots of people, all those people know how we work as an organisation and we have much better jobs for them to do.

But we cant get them to do those better jobs because we actually have to have people standing here all day picking things up and giving them to machines or picking them up and putting them down.

So if we can just make that next bit something that machines can do then that frees up people to do far more interesting jobs.

However, other thinkers dont necessarily share the same viewpoint.

A recent report from the Institute for Public Policy Research reckons that without policy intervention, automation is likely to exacerbate existing inequality rather than improve it.

And the GMB union said old jobs are being subsumed to automation faster than new jobs and are being created after reporting 600,000 job losses in manufacturing in the last decade.

But last year the World Economic Forum (WEF) seemed to agree with Walkers viewpoint.

Despite bringing widespread disruption, the advent of machine, robots and algorithm could actually have a positive impact on human employment, it stated.

However, if automation is going to free up workers from menial tasks then there will be a challenge for employers to reskill and redeploy their workers elsewhere.

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Robotics expert says automation will provide 'more interesting' jobs - Metro.co.uk