The social separation imposed by the pandemic led us to rely on technology to an extent we might never have imagined – from Teams and Zoom to online banking and vaccine status apps. Now, society faces an increasing number of decisions about our relationship with technology. For example, do we want our workforce needs fulfilled by automation, migrant workers, or an increased birth rate? In the coming years, we will also need to balance technological innovation with people's wellbeing – both in terms of the work they do and the social support they receive. And there is the question of trust. When humans should trust robots, and vice versa, is a question our Trust Node team is researching as part of the UKRI Trustworthy Autonomous Systems hub.

While much hay has been made about the sizable number of jobs that will be lost to automation, the workplace's robotic revolution will also come with a new wave of hiring. Close to 15 million new jobs will be created in the U.S. over the next decade as a direct result of automation and artificial intelligence, equivalent to 10% of the workforce, according to estimates in a new report from Forrester Research, a market research company. Those gains, however, will not come close to offsetting the 25 million jobs that technology will eliminate by 2027, Forrester predicts. The new jobs will be created "in software, engineering, design, maintenance, support, training, or another specific job area," the report found. A new generation of lawyers will be needed to regulate the interactions between human employees and robot workers, for example. And new human resources employees will be devoted to guiding staff as robots enter the workplace.

Two weeks ago, I compiled a list of the 5 jobs robots will take first. Last week, I compiled a list of the 5 jobs robots will take last. Both previous essays are about robots replacing human workers who do cognitive nonrepetitive work (such as middle managers, salespersons, tax accountants, and report writers) that most people do not believe robots will be able to do any time soon. For those essays, I defined robots as technologies, such as machine learning algorithms running on purpose-built computer platforms, that have been trained to perform tasks that currently require humans to perform. For this writing, let's expand the definition of robot to any autonomous system designed to do work that used to require humans to perform.

Last week, I compiled a list of the 5 jobs robots will take first. Today, let's have a go at the 5 jobs robots will take last. For this article only, let's define "robots" as technologies, such as machine learning algorithms running on purpose-built computer platforms, that have been trained to perform tasks that currently require humans to perform. For example, an assembly line worker performs mostly manual repetitive tasks which, depending on complexity and a cost/benefit analysis, can be automated. A CEO of a major multinational conglomerate performs mostly cognitive nonrepetitive tasks that are much harder to automate.

Last week, I compiled a list of the 5 jobs robots will take first. Today, let's have a go at the 5 jobs robots will take last. For this article only, let's define "robots" as technologies, such as machine learning algorithms running on purpose-built computer platforms, that have been trained to perform tasks that currently require humans to perform. For example, an assembly line worker performs mostly manual repetitive tasks which, depending on complexity and a cost/benefit analysis, can be automated. A CEO of a major multinational conglomerate performs mostly cognitive nonrepetitive tasks which are much harder to automate.

For workers, it's intimidating to hear of industrial digitization plans that envision handing over anywhere from 60 to 80 percent of processes to robots and other programmable machines in the not too distant future. But while there are certainly highly repetitive jobs bots would perform more efficiently and economically, automating alone is not always the best path to higher productivity. Smart organizations learn quickly enough that if they place efficiency above a smooth organizational transformation, they may find their automation efforts fail to improve their companies' performance. The real key to developing a competitive edge in an age of evermore automation is striking the right balance between people and robots, and evidence abounds that it's not necessarily the most automated factories or service organizations that rise to the top. The automotive industry, among the first to embrace robots in the manufacturing process, provides a working example of why companies cannot simply replace employees or fail to retain and retrain.

Technology has opened up a whole world of jobs, careers and opportunities. The tech sector continues to grow and expand rapidly, but which jobs are suffering as a result? As the tech sector grows and the internet of things (IoT) industry becomes more innovative, jobs that were previously only done by mere mortals can now be done by artificial intelligence. While robots won't be able to truly replace us (hopefully), there are some job sectors that are under threat in the not too distant future. With the announcement of 23 staff-less libraries due to roll out in Ireland next year, it's no wonder that librarians one of the top jobs under threat from a robot takeover.