Hans Classroom

Lawmakers of European Parliament have demanded EU-wide legislation to regulate the rise of robots, including an ethical framework for their development and deployment and the establishment of liability for the actions of robots including self-driving cars.

But they rejected a proposal to impose a so-called robot tax on owners to fund support for or retraining of workers put out of a job by robots. The resolution is a recommendation to the bloc's executive, the European Commission, which the Commission is not obliged to follow but must give reasons if it chooses not to.

Global shipments of industrial robots rose 15 percent in 2015, according to the latest statistics from the IFR (International Federation ofRobotics), and were worth a total of about $46 billion, reports Reuters.

Robotics is the interdisciplinary branch of engineering and science that includes mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, computer science, and others.

Robotics deals with the design, construction, operation, and use of robots, as well as computer systems for their control, sensory feedback, and information processing. Robots all have some kind of mechanical construction, a frame, form or shape designed to achieve a particular task.

For example, a robot designed to travel across heavy dirt or mud, might use caterpillar tracks. There are three different types of robotic programs: remote control, artificial intelligence and hybrid.

Robots that use artificial intelligence interact with their environment on their own without a control source, and can determine reactions to objects and problems they encounter using their preexisting programming, , according to Wikipedia.

Open markets and global trade have been blamed for job losses over the last decade, but global CEOs say the real culprits are increasingly machines. At the recent World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, they warned that the collateral damage to jobs should be addressed more seriously.

From taxi drivers to healthcare professionals, technologies such as robotics, driverless cars, artificial intelligence and 3-D printing mean more and more types of jobs are at risk. Adidas, for example, aims to use 3-D printing in the manufacture of some running shoes.

"Jobs will be lost, jobs will evolve and this revolution is going to be ageless, it's going to be classless and it's going to affect everyone," said Meg Whitman, chief executive of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, adds Reuters.