Software, robots and smart machines could replace a third of all workers by 2025, according to leading information technology research and advisory firm, Gartner. Gartner's prediction comes at a time when 100 million Americans are already unemployed or underemployed.
"New digital businesses require less labor; machines will be able to make sense of data faster than humans can," said Peter Sondergaard, Garner's research director, at this week's Symposium/Itxpo, reported Computer World.
Sondergaard expects these smart machines to perform a wide variety of work in both the physical and intellectual realms, giving an example of how machines now have the ability to grade essays and unstructured text. Smart machines will even be able to perform financial analysis, medical diagnostics and data analytic jobs.
"One day, a drone may be your eyes and ears," according to Gartner. "Drones are just one of many kinds of emerging technologies that extend well beyond the traditional information technology world - these are smart machines."
The automation revolution will mainly impact the "doers," likely leaving behind plenty of work for those who have to implement the work, according to symposium audience member Lawrence Strohmaier, the CIO of Nuverra Environmental Solutions. Strohmaier compared the current IT shift to the shift during the machine age.
Most people are focusing on various ways to adapt to the coming automation, and Gartner analyst David Aron said more CIOs than ever now report directly to the CEO - 41 percent - and to be effective leaders, CIOs have shifted from measuring costs to leading and explaining what their business needs to do to take advantage of smart technologies.
But the question remains: what will those do who have no room to adapt?
A 2013 University of Oxford study estimates even bleaker predictions regarding job loss due to automation. It found that 47 percent of today's U.S. workforce is at risk of losing their jobs to machines within the next decade or two.
According to the study, a few jobs with a 100 percent chance of becoming automated include telemarketers, mathematical technicians, insurance underwriters, watch repairers, tax preparers, data entry clerks and library technicians.
