More public spaces should block phone signals

Smartphones and tablets may soon be among the least of our concerns, however. The challenges posed by increased digitisation are more than matched by those that will likely arise with automation.

Visit a phone store or hotel in Tokyo these days and you'll likely find a smartbot waiting to welcome you. These are highly sophisticated robots which are programmed to biometrically "read" your emotional condition and to emulate or respond to it.

Similar though slightly less refined machines have been in use in Japanese aged care homes for some time. Their empathic programming allows them to provide a level of comfort to people who suffer from feelings of confusion, loneliness and other symptoms of dementia.

In a study a few years ago, a large majority of the clients in these homes said that they preferred the robotic "carers" to the human variety.

Automation in the home and workspace and on the roads will open some exciting doors. It may reduce mundane tasks, allowing us more time to engage with work we enjoy. It might also give us the chance to realise our ideas more quickly, thus freeing time for greater levels of innovation.

We may also find ourselves enjoying a wider range of work relationships, particularly as Industry 4.0 leads us into smart factories and offices, where people working remotely are more intrinsically linked to each other via the internet.

Automation, however, will also have a huge impact on the number of jobs available to us. Yes, it is historically true that new types of jobs have usually emerged to replace at least some of those left behind by industrial or technological progress.

However, the emergence of "smart industries" may mean that the pace of change is faster than we are expecting and preparing for.

According to a study released by the British House of Lords, as many as 35 percent of the nation's jobs may be lost to automation in the next twenty years.

People will need help to retrain for new jobs – in entirely different sectors of industry – much more quickly than they do today.

In the near future, governments, businesses and third sector groups will need to work together to provide basic mental healthcare facilities for workers who are becoming redundant.

When workers transition from one form or job to another, they stand to lose more than their income. They often lose comradeship and, most importantly, their sense of story. One study suggests that, on average, it takes two years for people to reinvent a personal narrative, based at least in part around their work.