They also predict that work will take  up less of our lives and we will have more free time to spend. Robots, which will look more and more like human beings, will have taken  over a lot of the boring everyday jobs we do today. In the next ten years, the Japanese will have  invented a robot that understands human speech. This is not science fiction: the optimists say that by the year 2020 we will have created humanoids with brains similar to those of an adult human being. This will  bring about a big change in the way we live.

 However, many experts feel pessimistic about the future. They predict that people themselves will look like robots. They will have microchips in various parts of their body, which will connect them to a wide variety of gadgets. Some experts even see robots as a  threat to human freedom. They are afraid that we will not be able to control them and that in the end, they will control us.