Tracey Follows from The Future Laboratory, which helps businesses plan for the future through its research and consultancy experts, has been looking at the matter after more and more robots could be used in industries replacing humans on jobs.

Follows, chief strategy and innovation officer, said that Futurists have been forecasting a sharp rise in lone-wolf terror attacks for years.

“But once robots can be hacked to become suicide-bombing machines, lone-robot attacks could become rife too,” she warned.

Follows is not really a sci-fi writer. Her work in telecoms, technology, retail and media  has helped to shape the future strategies of brands such as T-Mobile, BT, O2, EasyJet and John Lewis.

She said that artificial intelligence and machine-learning could let robots  self-program criminal activity.

"My forecast would be that by 2040 more crime will be committed by machines than by humans," she commented.

Experts have been warning that as more and more robots replace humans in jobs the future could see problems when their programs are hacked or they go rogue. Now it seems that even when you are being mugged, the robot could be the perpetrator.