Think your job is super-secure? Don't get too cosy. Experts predict many existing roles will be automated within the next 30 years, and the robots are already taking over. Take a look at some of the jobs automatons are stealing right now and find out if yours could be on the line.
One of the lasting side-effects of the COVID-19 pandemic is a conscious effort to keep surfaces as clean as possible. At the last Beijing Winter Olympics, robotic cleaners could be seen washing floors, wiping counters, and spraying sanitiser alongside their human colleagues.
With robotic vacuum cleaners already commonplace in homes around the globe, it's only a matter of time until cleaning jobs are exclusively staffed by machines. However, their track record isn't always squeaky clean; a robot vacuum sparked a city-wide search in Cambridge, England recently after escaping a hotel due to a sensor failure.
How do you take your coffee? At Taizicheng Railway Station in Zhangjiakou, a terminal just over a mile from Beijing's Olympic Village, it's served by an unusual barista. From grinding the beans to cleaning up afterwards, this clever robot can carry out the whole coffee-making process in around five minutes.
You don't even need to order at the counter; simply use your phone to scan the QR code for the drink you want and wait while technology takes care of the rest
The budding Gordon Ramsays out there might want to look away: Moley Robotics, a London-based start-up, has invented a 100% automated, intelligent robot chef. Billed as "the world's first robotic kitchen", the cooking automaton can whip up gourmet meals and even clean up after itself. Best of all, it can follow pretty much any recipe to the letter, precisely mimicking your favourite Michelin-starred chef or cookery writer.
Automated chefs were also responsible for rustling up dishes for athletes at the Beijing Olympics. With a repertoire that included Chinese and Western food, as well as fast-food dishes, the robotic caterers can serve thousands of different meals. This was a crucial part of the Olympics' "closed-loop" system, which stopped athletes and reporters from leaving the site once they'd entered to limit the spread of COVID-19.
Robot waiters are popping up all over the world, from the Gran Caffè Rapallo in Italy (pictured) to a care home in Delaware County, USA. Programmed to collect and deliver food, these robots range from the humanoid to the purely functional.
As well as food service roles, could manufacturing jobs soon become a thing of the past for humans? Machines have been taking over industrial work for decades, but the majority of all-robot factories have only become a reality relatively recently. Early adopters included China's Everwin Precision Technology, which replaced 90% of its factory workforce with automatons in 2015, as well as the Apple and Samsung electronics supplier Foxconn, which replaced 60,000 of its employees with robots in 2016.
According to analysis by advisory organisation Oxford Economics, as many as 20 million human factory workers could be replaced by robots by 2030.
Robots are also taking over the operating theatre. Promoting robotic-assisted surgery as "a minimally invasive option", American company Intuitive Surgery launched its da Vinci robotic surgical system way back in 2000, and they have since been used in more than 10 million procedures.
Ultra-precise, robo-surgeons are currently used for everything from knee replacement surgery to vision correction. Futurologists predict that robots will almost certainly operate on patients independently and replace human surgeons one day.
And it's not just surgeons that could soon be replaced by robots at your local hospital. Hospital admin staff play a key role in organising complex employee schedules and juggling patient beds, but their jobs could become obsolete.
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) have already trialled a robot that can organise nurses' schedules and source beds for patients.
Human tour guides are so last century. At Japan's National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation, scarily life-like androids act as exhibition guides. A robot called Kodomoroid lets visitors know about new stories that are relevant to the exhibits, while science communicator bot Otonaroid can answer visitors' science-related questions.
Since July 2021, a machine called Persephone has worked as "the world's first robot tour guide inside a cave" at the Alistrati Cave in Greece. Costing around $135,000 (£100k) to build, Persephone can speak 33 languages and covers around 500 feet (150 metres) of the tourist attraction. Unlike Kodomoroid and Otonaroid, however, she looks reassuringly mechanical.
An educational robot called Pepper became the UK's first automated teacher when it entered classrooms at the London Design and Engineering University Technical College in September 2016. The semi-humanoid robot, which already "taught" at a high school in Japan, is fitted with microphones, HD cameras, and 3D sensors to enable it to interact with students and even detect their emotions.
Softbank Robotics, the company behind Pepper, confirmed in June 2021 that it was pausing production due to a lack of demand. However, Pepper isn't the only robot that's taken to the classroom. The Personal Robots Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has developed Tega, a fluffy "social robot" that acts as a learning assistant for young children.
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Pepper might have retired from teaching, but the android has had a more successful run in the retail sector, snatching a fair few sales associate roles from unsuspecting humans. Nestlé used Pepper robots to sell Dolce Gusto coffee pods and Gold Blend coffee machines in department stores across Japan, as well as to answer customer queries. This was as part of the company's "ongoing effort to enhance brand engagement with consumers", according to the official press release.
More than just a gimmick, Nestlé announced in autumn 2014 that the robots would be rolled out to 1,000 stores across the country by the end of 2015.
Robotic security guards are already patrolling businesses, and look set to relieve more of their human counterparts of their jobs soon.
Knightscope's K5 security robot constantly monitors its surroundings for suspicious behaviour and can detect potentially criminal "audio events", such as glass breaking or people screaming. Fully autonomous, the robots even charge themselves without human intervention. An impressive 24 of the robots were installed in shopping malls and offices in Silicon Valley, California in 2015. But they haven't been a resounding success; in 2016, one rogue K5 robot knocked down and (non-fatally) ran over a toddler.
You've probably heard of Babe the sheep-pig – but what about SwagBot the sheep-robot?
In 2016, the Australian Centre for Field Robotics announced that it had developed SwagBot: a shepherd robot that can tend to livestock such as sheep, cattle, and pigs. Packed with smart sensors, the robot is able to corral the animals in its care, analyse the quality of the pasture, and even moonlight as a vet by monitoring the health of its herd.
The world's first robot farm launched in Japan in 2017. Owned by a company called Spread, the vegetable factory is an indoor hydroponic farm factory that's designed to product around 30,000 lettuces a day by 2030, with minimal cost and human input required. Robots water, feed, harvest, and transplant the crops: in fact, they do everything apart from sow the seeds.
Elsewhere, robots are also being used to pick fruit such as strawberries, using sensors to choose the ripest berries to reduce food waste.
Pill-counting devices have been used by pharmacists for years. However, thanks to the latest robotic prescription dispensing systems, hospitals can now use automatons to dispense prescriptions. The machines are noted for their accuracy; in a world where thousands of people die each year as a result of human pharmacist errors, it could only be a matter of time before these devices become ubiquitous.
Designed by Swisslog Healthcare, PillPick is an automated packaging and dispensing system, and is apparently the first and only example of its kind. As well as reducing the workload for its human "colleagues" by 50%, it also eliminates the need for physical contact: a potentially important consideration as the world emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2017, online delivery service Just Eat marked an important milestone: the delivery of its 1,000th order by a robot in London. Although the pilot scheme hasn't been widely adopted across the UK just yet, robots are steadily replacing delivery drivers all around the world.
Since November 2020, for example, Amazon has been using its Amazon Scout robots to deliver packages in Washington, California, Georgia, and Tennessee.
A robot penning reports or articles sounds like the stuff of sci-fi, but it's already a reality. US tech firm Narrative Science has pioneered natural language generation software called Quill that can transform raw data into intelligible reports and articles.
The technology has been adopted by Forbes for its corporate earning reports, as well as by news agency Associated Press for financial and sports reports, replacing the journalists who would normally write such things.
Weaponised drones have taken the place of hundreds of soldiers in combat situations. The US Army, for example, has used the technology extensively in the ongoing war on terror.
According to General Robert Core, as much as a quarter of US combat soldiers could be replaced by robots by 2030, saving many American lives on the battlefield.
They may not provide quite as warm a welcome as a human receptionist, but some companies around the world have started using robots to greet visitors and guests.
As well as being a teacher and retail assistant, the multi-talented Pepper robot can also add "receptionist" to its CV – and the now-retired robot isn't alone. Robots of London, a company that offers robots for sale and hire, has apparently supplied robot receptionists to UK businesses including Intel and software company Sage.
Telephone salespeople are most at threat of losing their jobs to robots, according to a study by Oxford University and Deloitte. Sales calls are already being generated by voicebots and, as artificial intelligence becomes more sophisticated, the bulk of telemarketing roles are likely to be performed by bots.
The latest mega-sized 3D printers are able to construct whole buildings with minimal human labour, and several firms have already embraced the technology. In 2016, Chinese real estate company Huashang Tengda used a 3D printer to build a two-storey house in just 45 days. Construction workers simply had to install the property's frame, wiring and plumbing, and the printer took care of the rest.
Meanwhile, California-based company Azure Printed Homes made plans to start 3D printing houses, using recycled materials and technology that could enable them to build a home in just 12 hours.
Finance jobs may soon be numbered. While humanoid accountant bots are still some way off, many companies are already automating their accounts, to the point that some no longer require dedicated accounts payable and receivable employees.
Companies such as Lexmark and Basware currently offer fully automated accounts systems that do everything from matching purchase orders to flagging invoices for payment.
Researchers at Singapore's Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) have developed a robotic librarian that laser-scans shelves and can tell which books are missing or misplaced.
Tracking down misplaced books and tidying shelves are major parts of the average librarian's daily grind, so this machine has the potential to replace a significant number of jobs.
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