20 jobs humans might lose to robots

Technology is moving rapidly, replacing humans with robots, artificial intelligence and automated technological solutions. It’s set to displace millions of workers as it makes their roles redundant. Is your career safe? Here are 20 jobs that humans might lose to robots.



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Truck drivers

Trucks ensure that food makes it to your grocery stores, gas is available at the station and consumer goods are available for all. There are two million truck drivers in the United States alone, and their jobs are at risk as tech companies like Google and Tesla turn driverless trucks into a reality—and those prototypes have already been tested on the open road.



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Reporters

One might expect purveyors of the written word to remain safe from automation, but robots are getting better at replicating human language, even if they’re not quite there yet. Don’t expect them to do hard-hitting investigative journalism, but there are plenty of routine stories that could be written by robots in the future.



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Warehouse and fulfillment jobs



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Cashiers and store clerks

Most people have experienced self-checkouts already, as major retailers like Walmart install the necessary equipment and use it to reduce the labour costs of hiring cashiers and store clerks. While the boutique experience of being served by a human being may not disappear anytime soon, expect more stores, including mom-and-pops, to offer self-checkout options in the future.



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Insurance underwriter

Insurance underwriters analyze potential risks in insuring a person or thing. It involves crunching numbers and, maybe, a bit of personal judgment. The consultancy firm McKinsey & Company highly recommends that insurers digitize their underwriting process and leverage the power of machine learning to determine risk, which would inevitably put a lot of insurance underwriters out of work.



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Microsoft may earn an Affiliate Commission if you purchase something through recommended links in this article.


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Bookkeepers

It’s unlikely that all accountants will be put out of work by automation, but it’s simple enough to automate basic bookkeeping tasks. In fact, there are already several software solutions for both small businesses and enterprise corporations that do just that, which allows accountants to focus on more meaningful tasks, but will also, likely, put some of them out of work.



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Lawyers and paralegals

No, we won’t live in a world without lawyers anytime soon, but we may live in a world with fewer lawyers and paralegals, as law firms can now leverage artificial intelligence to perform some of the more onerous, time-consuming tasks previously relegated to lower-ranking attorneys and paralegals.



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Food preparation

Food preparation can be monotonous work, as low-wage preppers spend hours performing the same task over and over again. Those preppers may have to look elsewhere, however, as robots will soon be able to handle the work with fewer grievances and, in the post-pandemic world, less human contact.



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Telemarketers

Some might bemoan the lack of human presence in an automated telemarketing call, but with 93 per cent of calls ending in failure, according to NBC News, it just might make sense to use inexpensive robots (or robocalls) to separate the wheat from the chaff, especially as they become more capable of emulating human speech and emotion.



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Tax preparation

If you’ve brought your taxes to accounting giant H&R Block lately, you may have already benefited from the automation of tax preparation. The company has partnered with IBM Watson, an AI-driven computer service that can leverage machine learning algorithms to provide clients with better tax outcomes.



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Office administrators

While discussions about the “robot apocalypse” tend to focus on physical jobs, the automation revolution is likely to conquer white-collar work first. Consultancy firms like KPMG are encouraging clients to automate routine office work, which frees up employees for more challenging problems.



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Loan officer

Loan officers do the diligent work of investigating the fiscal health of a business or individual and determining whether or not they can take on more debt and be accepted for more credit. A report from the Brookings Institution suggests that loan officers will be able to automate many of their tasks, which won’t eliminate the job entirely, but will make parts of it redundant.



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Sports referees

Some might consider it part of the game for a referee to make a “bad call,” but that could be made a thing of the past with automation. A 2013 report from Oxford University suggests that referees have a 98-per-cent chance of being replaced by computers, which would prevent contested decisions from ruining a sports fan’s night ever again.



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Bank tellers

Bank tellers were among the first customer-facing workers to have their jobs threatened by automation after automated banking machines were introduced in the 1970s. While most ATMs are limited in their functionality, mobile banking could further displace the role of the human bank teller in the near future.



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Models

Models are required to be perfect physical specimens, and in addition to that, their appearances are enhanced by makeup, lighting and Photoshopping. As technology gets better, it may no longer be necessary to use human models for advertising campaigns, as computer-generated images will do the trick.



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