Are robots coming for your job?
Although technology has long affected the labor force, recent advances in artificial intelligence and robotics are heightening concerns about automation replacing a growing number of occupations, including highly skilled or "knowledge-based" jobs.
Just a few examples: self-driving technology may eliminate the need for taxi, Uber and truck drivers, algorithms are playing a growing role in journalism, robots are informing consumers as mall greeters, and medicine is adapting robotic surgery and artificial intelligence to detect cancer and heart conditions.
Of 700 occupations in the United States, 47 percent are at "high risk" from automation, an Oxford University study concluded in 2013.
A McKinsey study released this year offered a similar view, saying "about half" of activities in the world's workforce "could potentially be automated by adapting currently demonstrated technologies."
Still, McKinsey researchers offered a caveat, saying that only around five percent of jobs can be "fully automated."
Another report, by PwC this month, concluded that around a third of jobs in the United States, Germany and Britain could be eliminated by automation by the early 2030s, with the losses concentrated in transportation and storage, manufacturing, and wholesale and retail trade.
But experts warn that such studies may fail to grasp the full extent of the risks to the working population.
"The studies are underestimating the impact of technology—some 80 to 90 percent of jobs will be eliminated in the next 10 to 15 years," said Vivek Wadhwa, a tech entrepreneur and faculty member at Carnegie Mellon University in Silicon Valley.
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