8 industries robots will completely transform by 2025

Robot doing dishes
Robot HRP-2 demonstrates use of a tap after washing a cup at Tokyo University Kim Kyung Hoon/Reuters

Just as ATMs changed banking and computers took over the home and workplace, robots and artificial intelligence are going to transform a bunch of industries over the next decade.

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By 2025, a machine may be putting together your driverless car in a factory with no human oversight. A robot maid could be cleaning up after you at home, and your financial advisor might be a computer investing for you automatically. 

And with at least 90 countries operating unmanned aerial vehicles, the wars of the future may increasingly be fought with "drone" aircraft.

These are just some of the interesting — and sometimes scary — predictions to come from a 300-page report released by Merrill Lynch in November, which estimates the global market for robots and AI will grow from $28 billion to more than $150 billion just five years from now.

There's plenty of disruption bound to happen across the world as drones and much-smarter-than-you AI take over. But we're likely to see the biggest changes across eight industries in China, Japan, the US, and Korea — the countries currently investing the most in these technologies.

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Here are the big predictions from Merrill Lynch:

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The auto industry is going to change big-time, especially when fully autonomous — aka driverless — cars officially go mainstream.

Auto worker, factory, General Motors, assembly line
REUTERS/John F. Martin

Over the next five years, the report says most new cars will be smarter "connected" cars, and in 2025, that'll mean about 10% of them are fully autonomous.

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google
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While the initial price will be about $10,000 more than regular cars, it will inevitably come down as more people and companies adopt them.

Tesla Autopilot
YouTube/Tesla

Some companies, like Google and Tesla, are currently working on cars that drive themselves. And Japan is already <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/05/driverless-robot-taxis-to-be-tested-in-japanese-town" target="_new">testing "robot taxis"</a> with the hope of transporting people during the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.

Robot Taxi
Yuya Shino/ Reuters
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The biggest change to the financial sector will likely come from "robo-advisors" that will replace investing pros.

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By around 2020, the report estimates there could be up to $2.2 trillion in investments made through AI-enabled computers that can actually "learn" markets.

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The BlueGene/L supercomputer is presented to the media at the Lawerence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, on October 27, 2005. Kimberly White/Reuters
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The industry has already shifted that direction with <a href="http://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/high-frequency-trading.asp" target="_new">high-frequency trading</a>, while other companies promise clients <a href="https://www.wealthfront.com/" target="_new">sophisticated algorithms</a> to manage their money automatically.

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Spencer Platt/Getty Images

The hospital of the future is going to have robots helping with everything from critical surgery to caring for elderly and disabled patients.

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Associated Press
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There were only 1,000 robot-assisted surgeries performed in 2000. By 2014, that number was 570,000 — and it will continue to grow.

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ChinaFotoPress/Getty

Technology will also make up for a shortfall in trained medical workers. With its aging population, Japan continues to lead the world in "care bots" that help the elderly with basic tasks.

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YouTube
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Only 10% of worldwide manufacturing tasks are automated right now. That's expected to increase to 45% over the next 10 years as robots get much cheaper.

Auto assembly line robots weld on the frame of  2009 Dodge Ram pick-up trucks at the Warren Truck Assembly Plant in Warren, Michigan September 12, 2008.    REUTERS/Rebecca Cook
Auto assembly line robots weld on the frame of 2009 Dodge Ram pick-up trucks at the Warren Truck Assembly Plant in Warren, Michigan Thomson Reuters

They're are also getting better. While some functions have often needed human hands, some companies like China's Foxconn are investing in robots that can put together the tiny parts in Apple's iPhone, for example.

foxconn iphone apple factory production line
Steve Jurvetson/Wikipedia
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Agriculture will also see big changes, with more driverless tractors, drones, and milk bots joining the farm.

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Wikimedia Commons

The farms of 2025 will also increasingly use AI technology and big data analytics to optimize crop output.

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The service industry will be changed as more personal robots — machines able to do jobs that are easy, dangerous, or repetitive — are introduced.

Robot Bartender
Humanoid robot bartender "Carl" gestures to guests at the Robots Bar and Lounge in the eastern German town of Ilmenau, July 26, 2013. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch

You already know the Roomba can vacuum your floor, but other robots are being built to mow the lawn, clean windows, and wash dishes.

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Eirik Newth
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And then there are robots like Softbank's Pepper. Debuted in 2015, it lives in the home, talking and reacting to human emotions. Many more of these kinds of robots will appear in the coming years.

SoftBank Pepper robot
SoftBank Corp. Chief Executive Masayoshi Son (R) waves with the company's human-like robots named 'pepper' during a news conference in Urayasu, east of Tokyo June 5, 2014. REUTERS/Issei Kato

Meanwhile, the AI industry is poised to blow up — and it will affect much of the global economy as computers continue to get more intelligent.

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IBM
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AI technologies such as software that can make predictions or think much like humans do (or better) could be a $43 billion industry by 2024.

Garry Kasparov deep blue IBM chess artificial intelligence machine learning
World chess champion Garry Kasparov studies the board shortly before game two of the match against the IBM supercomputer Deep Blue (R), May 4. This was only the second time in history that a computer program has defeated a reigning world champion in a classical chess format. The Russian grandmaster, who won game one May 3, lost game two after 45 moves and 3 hours and 42 minutes of play. Kasparov will play six games against Deep Blue in a re-match of their first contest in 1996. Reuters

But "full AI" — a computer being able to truly emulate human thought — has only a 50% chance of happening by 2040-50. That goes up to 90% by 2075.

artificial intelligence robot
AILA, or Artificial Intelligence Lightweight Android, presses switches on a panel it recognizes during a demonstration at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence GmbH (Deutsches Forschungszentrum fuer Kuenstliche Intelligenz GmbH) stand at the 2013 CeBIT technology trade fair on March 5, 2013 in Hanover, Germany. CeBIT will be open March 5-9. Sean Gallup/Getty Images
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There is an AI downside of course. The report predicts a reduction in "knowledge work" to the tune of 230 million jobs worldwide, and some have argued that AI could produce <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jul/27/musk-wozniak-hawking-ban-ai-autonomous-weapons" target="_new">"killer robots."</a>

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Paramount Pictures

There is something to that argument: The aerospace and defense industry already has military machines that don't always need human control, like drones that fly automatically to their target, though they currently have humans pulling the trigger.

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U.S. Air Force photo/Lt Col Leslie Pratt
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Right now, 90 countries operate drones, 30 of which are armed. And the number of commercial and military drones is expected to triple over the next five years.

amazon prime air drone
Amazon

There will also likely be autonomous military vehicles and robots developed for land, like the Google-owned Boston Dynamics "mule." It's designed to carry heavy loads that soldiers can't.

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Screenshot
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It's pretty clear that robots and AI are going to transform industries. But that also means plenty of human jobs are at risk: 47% of US jobs have the potential to be automated, according to the report.

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Charles Rex Arbogast / AP

But that's not necessarily a bad thing. As robots and computers take on some tasks, humans will likely shift to other, more creative fields — just as bank tellers moved on as the ATMs moved in.

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Stickers reading "No" are posted on an ATM outside a National Bank branch as a woman makes a transaction in central Athens, Greece July 15, 2015. REUTERS/Yiannis Kourtoglou
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And plenty of jobs are seemingly safe from robots, futurologist Ian Pearson <a href="http://www.techinsider.io/jobs-robots-cant-take-over-2015-11" target="_new">previously explained to TI</a>: "You can’t really say, 'because you have Google you don’t need a teacher anymore because you can find everything you want on Google.'"

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woodleywonderworks/flickr
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