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"Unskilled manual laborers have felt the pressure of automation for a long time - but, increasingly, they're not alone. The last few years have been a bonanza of advances in artificial intelligence. As our software gets smarter, it can tackle harder problems, which means white-collar and pink-collar workers are at risk as well. Here are eight jobs expected to be automated (partially or entirely) in the coming decades. Call Center Employees call-center Telemarketing used to happen in a crowded call center, with a group of representatives cold-calling hundreds of prospects every day. Of those, maybe a few dozen could be persuaded to buy the product in question. Today, the idea is largely the same, but the methods are far more efficient. Many of today's telemarketers are not human. In some cases, as you've probably experienced, there's nothing but a recording on the other end of the line. It may prompt you to "press '1' for more information," but nothing you say has any impact on the call - and, usually, that's clear to you. But in other cases, you may get a sales call and have no idea that you're actually speaking to a computer. Everything you say gets an appropriate response - the voice may even laugh. How is that possible? Well, in some cases, there is a human being on the other side, and they're just pressing buttons on a keyboard to walk you through a pre-recorded but highly interactive marketing pitch. It's a more practical version of those funny soundboards that used to be all the rage for prank calls. Using soundboard-assisted calling - regardless of what it says about the state of human interaction - has the potential to make individual call center employees far more productive: in some cases, a single worker will run two or even three calls at the same time. In the not too distant future, computers will be able to man the phones by themselves. At the intersection of big data, artificial intelligence, and advanced

"Google, Uber, Tesla and the major truck manufacturers are looking to a future in which people like Baxter will be replaced - or at the very least downgraded to co-pilots - by automated vehicles that will save billions but will cost millions of jobs. It will be one of the biggest changes to the jobs market since the invention of the automated loom - challenging the livelihoods of millions across the world."

"Analysis - The need for businesses to adapt to the workplace demands of the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the adoption of digital technologies, with clear implications for jobs and workers. But just how much employees worry about the threat of automation - and how real those fears are - can have implications for workplaces beyond the technological change itself. Our new research examined how employees feel about the introduction of "robotic process automation" (RPA) to the workplace. We also looked at how the willingness to embrace these new technologies influenced employees' assessment of the software bots and their work."

""The ethics commission has done pioneering work and has developed the world's first guidelines for automated driving. We are now implementing these guidelines." The ethics rules address a classic thought experiment: the "trolley problem.""

"Maybe so, but guess what? You're next. When automation starts displacing lawyers, accountants and bankers, then we might see some push-back about the social costs of technology. So long as it's only truckers and factory workers getting sacked, well, there's always Walmart, McDonald's, or food stamps."

Six convoys of semi-automated "smart" trucks arrived in Rotterdam's harbour on Wednesday after an experiment its organisers say will revolutionise future road transport on Europe's busy highways. More than a dozen self-driving trucks made by six of Europe's largest manufacturers arrived in the port in so-called "truck platoons" around midday, said Eric Jonnaert, president of the umbrella body representing DAF, Daimler, Iveco, MAN, Scania and Volvo."

"A new online study in Scientific Reports finds that drivers of these vehicles are assigned most of the blame for crashes which, the team argues, they can't reasonably avoid. This work is important because, as Niek Beckers at Delft University of Technology and colleagues point out, public opinion on this matter could shape future vehicle design and also legislation."

"It seems highly likely that competition between the various companies developing these technologies will produce practical, self-driving trucks within the next five to 10 years. And once the technology is proven, the incentive to adopt it will be powerful: in the US alone, large trucks are involved in about 350,000 crashes a year, resulting in nearly 4,000 fatalities. Virtually all of these incidents can be traced to human error. The potential savings in lives, property damage and exposure to liability will eventually become irresistible. There's only one problem: truck driving is one of the most common occupations in the US. "