How artificial intelligence will reshape our lives

"Over the next 20 years approximately 44 per cent of Australia's jobs, that's more than 5 million jobs, are at risk of being disrupted by technology, whether that's digitisation or automation," he said. "The sort of job losses that we did see in the manufacturing sector in Australia -- the car manufacturing sector -- are going to get into the administrative services and financial services sector in downtown CBD postcodes and that's the big challenge that lies in front of us," he said. Mr Thorpe agrees, adding that white-collar workers in Australia were "the big growth sector over the last 30 years". Mr Hajkowicz said the technology behind digital currency bitcoin -- known as blockchain -- also threatens to seriously shake up the industry.