Ten years ago nobody knew what a smartphone was or that they even needed one.

In 10 years’ time, chances are we won’t be able to live without our personal robots.

Or live because of them.

Robo-maids and robo-cars. Burger-bots and sex-bots. It seems no human profession is safe from the rise of the machines.

But there are silver linings.

As Dr Jayantha Katupitiya, head of UNSW Australia’s Mechatronic Engineering department, points out: They save lives.

Machines can do the fighting and dying for us. The iron-hearted courage needed for dashing into flames to pull soft, fleshy people out of the rubble may soon come as standard. And you need never worry again about how much of a bender your brain surgeon was on the night before…

SO, HOW LONG HAVE WE GOT?

While software – particularly in the realm of artificial intelligence – has not advanced at anywhere near the exponential rate of computer processor power, rapid advances are being made.

Basic forms of AI are already here – controlling our traffic lights, guiding our drones and making critical buy-sell decisions on our stock markets.

Some are already cleaning our floors.

Channelling Blade Runner’s Rick Deckard: Will the robo-revolution be of benefit, or a hazard?

The Pew Research internet Project recently asked some 1800 tech industry experts just that.

When asked what they thought the year 2025 would be like, their answers were conflicted.

The resulting report, titled AI, Robotics and the Future of Jobs, predicts a world where robots are no longer just mechanical arms on a production line. Instead, artificial intelligence and mechanical automation will dominate “wide segments of daily life”.

Where the researchers were split was whether or not this was a good thing.

The only apparent certainty to come out of the study was mechanoid-induced unemployment.

Essentially, any job that can be automated will be.

But Dr Katupitiya says this is nothing new.

“Evolution of human thinking and its use in advancing technological frontiers has always been there – it is not a new thing,” he says. “It was buffaloes that pulled the ploughs long time ago with several people walking behind or riding on them, but they are long gone and massive tractors do the job. That was a quantum leap of technology and its effect was more positive than negative. The majority of the technological revolution has improved the quality of life, and of course, naturally, they would not take that path if it was not going to give a better outcome.”

They’re here. They’re now. They’re already taking control.

Signs are the much-feared robo-apocalypse most likely will not come with a bang. Instead, it will be delivered with a redundancy slip.

WHOSE JOBS ARE MOST AT RISK?

Musicians

Machines could never approach the human heights of creativity as demonstrated by one of our greatest artistic achievements, music, right? Wrong. We’ve already seen robotic bands on tour. But now they’re moving beyond bass-beating and guitar-strumming automatons. The lead singers themselves are under threat. And fair’s fair: Auto Tune has artificially inflated many “manufactured” performers’ careers. Now, the machines may soon get to snare the limelight for themselves. Experiments are underway for machines to compose, perform – and sing – new songs on the fly. They’re even able to generate their own probability of striking chart success.

Sex workers

The idea is almost as old as science fiction. The reality is now … near. GigaOm Research’s Stowe Boyd gave this prediction to the Pew study: “Robotic sex partners will be a commonplace, although the source of scorn and division, the way that critics today bemoan selfies as an indicator of all that’s wrong with the world.” They may look human(ish). They may even move and feel human. But how human is human anyway? Beware: It may not be all lip gloss and lingerie –as Priss and Zhora demonstrated in the 1982 scifi classic Blade Runner.

Journalists

It’s already been done. Experiments have taken various sets of sporting results and a pool of seemingly appropriate phrases and plugged them into an electrically powered (as opposed to alcohol-fuelled) machine. Needless to say, a fully-formed sport report sprang forth – almost indistinguishable from its human contrived counterpart. Associated Press sees so much money-saving potential in their scribe-bot software that they plan to roll it out in business and sporting newsrooms soon.

Fast-food workers

Slapping a bun on the bench then stacking a set pattern of lettuce, tomato, sauce and burger on top seems somewhat mundane (want fries with that?). But this industry – the domain of the schoolkid wanting a bit of pocket money or students trying to pay their way – is going the way of car manufacturing: All automated arms and conveyor belts. Once such device is already on the market: Momentum Machines can build a burger at a rate of one every 10 seconds.

Culinary chefs

If a food critic says your cooking is so bad it means you’ll wind up flipping burgers for the rest of your life, you’re in double trouble. Soon even the most intricate culinary delights need not be manhandled. Advances in the field of 3D printing and automatic assembly have moved beyond plastic into unexpected realms – such as cooking. While it may just be intricate chocolate confectionaries and perfect pastas at first, mechanical Jamie Olivers could soon be advancing up the culinary strips – out of the burger joints, into your favourite curry house and on to the Michelin 5 star on the main street.

Mules

The robo-apocalypse is not just a threat to humanity. It could also result in further unemployment for our equine friends. US military research organisation DARPA is building a better mule in the form of its “Big Dog” robotic all-terrain, luggage-lifting combat robot. It’s even begun to train with real-life Marines.

Pilots

Combat pilots already know their careers are on the line. Not only are their automated rivals cheaper to operate, they’re also capable of tighter turns and higher speeds. But airbus drivers are next – if a sceptical public can be convinced. Instead of highly paid flight captains that are largely supervisors anyway, watching over the automated control deck for most of the flight, it may soon be an advanced judgment machine capable of making the life-and-death decisions that can affect as many as 850 soft, fleshy passengers.

Delivery Drivers

Trying to pay your way through university? Pizza-delivery hours suit you? Forget it. You can’t compete with a drone. Not the flying variety (though that may eventually be an option), but automatic artificial-intelligence driven delivery vans. It’s not just going to affect pizza workers of course: All forms of parcel or product delivery – from Amazon.com through to Ikea, pizza through to milk – all are likely to become a driverless process. As are taxi and bus drivers. Even driving instructors.

Finance workers

This one may have already happened, so how there are still so many “high flying” hedge fund and money managers out there is something of a mystery. Humans have very little direct involvement in the world of money trading, playing the stock markets or even buying and selling materials. It’s all automated by machines with predefined parameters and encoded buy-sell triggers. It’s a business defined by milliseconds – not the suave, silky-voiced entrepreneurs of the 80s and 90s. But it’s not just the bigwigs that will bear the brunt of the robotic takeover: Your average accountant will also likely become a pay-per-use website or app within the near future.

Managers

Even predictive rosters are being formulated by ‘bots analysing sales patterns for big business (such as Starbucks and clothing manufacturers) to optimise the numbers of bums on seats to match anticipated workloads. Of course, none of this bodes well for a worker’s income stability or work-life schedule predictability.

Firefighters

Like those hunks of manflesh on the pin-up calendars? Soon it will all be slabs of chrome. Again, US defence scientists are leading the charge for the development of a cyber-hero: A machine capable of fighting fires in confined spaces, of sifting through the rubble for signs of life, of rescuing robo-cats from trees. They’ve even initiated the Robo Olympics as part of this quest. So far the physical specimens are far from impressive. But, then, nor was Apple’s Newton – the precursor to the iPad.

Bartender

So you’ve got your last paycheck and you want to hit the pub for a bit of emotional therapy and career advice. Who better to offer it than a robo-bartender? Not only can such machines mix the perfect martini – they may even be able to offer more than “uh huh, tell me more”. In a direct attack on the careers of psychologists, counsellors and therapists, algorithms for assessing and diagnosing a multitude of disorders could be a simple upgrade to this chrome and bow-tie brigade.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

Despite the fears, there are upsides. If we embrace them.

“How could you justify sending lines of policemen with shields and batons to deal with a violent crowd when it could be a giant gentle machine?” Dr Katupitiya asks. “Why should a nurse administer a wrong pill by human error when it can be done absolutely right every time? In short how can we defend some of these jobs with any sincerity, while there is injury, manslaughter and death attached to them in some way?”

But change is disruptive.

We know our early-generation robots are good at repetitive tasks. And so are your average blue and white-collar workers.

This is why the middle class will bear the brunt of this first robotic assault: After all, labour costs have been well established as the corporate world’s greatest liability.

Half of the Pew study’s researchers remained optimistic about the future, stating that historically technology has always created more jobs than it has destroyed.

The other half says the displaced workforce will not have time to adjust or retrain to avoid massive unemployment or social disruption. Then there’s the problem of our generally unresponsive legal, political and economic systems. Will they be able to adapt fast enough?

It’s a fear fully embraced by leading US tech economist Larry Summers

“ (There) will be … devastating consequences of robots, 3-D printing, artificial intelligence, and the like for those who perform routine tasks,” he recently wrote.

“And the trends are all in the wrong direction, particularly for the less skilled, as the capacity of capital embodying artificial intelligence to replace white-collar as well as blue-collar work will increase rapidly in the years ahead.”

European futurologist Ray Hammond feels it’s the traditional “tradie” such as carpenters, plumbers and electricians who will remain immune from robotic infestation.

“Funnily enough, blue collar jobs are safer, they are very flexible. A carpenter won’t do the same job twice. It’s the admin jobs which are more at risk,” he said.

And then there’s the robots themselves.

Who builds them? Who designs them?

Well, eventually robots of course.

But a recent report by the International Federation of Robotics stated that up to 80,000 jobs were created in the electronics sector between 2008 and 2011. It went on to argue that for every robot activated, 3.6 six jobs were created for their flesh-based predecessors.

Fears abound that the world is headed for a robojobapocalypse. But will it just be a difficult transitional period, such as the dirty and diseased Industrial Revolution?

“Some employment has to go but not for the worse but for the better,” Dr Katupitiya says. “Those who leave will move on to jobs in the never ending and unpredictable new frontiers which humans have been creating ever since we existed. I do not believe for a moment that humans will collectively be outsmarted by robots nor will it results in a massive undesirable job loss. There is a lot to discover and there will always be work there.”

Nevertheless, at some point the redistribution of skilled and repetitive work will have a significant impact on society as we know it – if it hasn’t already.

But at least one job seems sound: Customer complaints.

“Detecting complaints is an AI problem. Sending the complaints to the correct customer service entity is an AI problem,” one contributor to the Pew report stated. “But customer service itself is a human problem.”

Human interaction remains our last best hope.

So why does a robot answer the phone for the bank?

Words: Jamie Seidel. Design: Steven Grice