Although it may be the case that the entire workforce of cleaners at Auckland Airport stands to be replaced by just three robots, it's not just blue-collar workers who are at risk.
Employees in the service sector (who comprise around 80 per cent of all employees in New Zealand) are also in the cross-fire.
And not just those who provide administrative support in offices: more than 20 per cent of management positions and around 12 per cent of professional positions may no longer exist in2035.
Ironically, accountants themselves face an especially uncertain future: Robot nation estimates that all but two roles in accounting are at high risk of automation.
Clearly it's not all doom and gloom: as they displace some jobs those disruptive innovations will also create new ones.
But the report makes it abundantly clear that in this new world of work, specific technical skills will not be enough (in fact, they may put your employment status at risk). Rather, people will need the sorts of "soft" - or transferable - skills that will help them navigate a working life likely to contain many jobs rather than a single career, and take advantage of new opportunities when the robots come calling.
This poses some stiff challenges to all of us - ones that are being directly addressed at Massey and at other New Zealand universities.
Perhaps surprisingly to some, the front line - and the locus of some of the most innovative curriculum redesign - is in the BA.
Long (and incorrectly) dismissed in this country as lacking occupational relevance, Robot nation confirms the future value of the sorts of transferable skills long taught in the BA.
These include critical thinking, problem solving, communication skills, and social intelligence, not to mention cross-cultural competence, tolerance and understanding of different viewpoints, and empathy - all of which count for much in our complex, multi-cultural society and globalised working environments.
In fact, the report's authors warn against supporting occupationally specific skills and point out that jobs requiring these sorts of transferable skills are at least risk from automation in the future.
My own university - Massey - has already redesigned the curriculum of its BA in anticipation of the changes that are just around the corner. By doing, so we will ensure that our students are well placed to deal with the rapid change, uncertainty, unpredictability - and opportunity - that we know has arrived in the world of work.
At the same time we are doing something else that is perhaps even more valuable - we are preparing our students to be able to make sense of the consequences that these disruptive technologies will have for the way we live our lives. Because the thing about technology is that it has no impact whatsoever until it lands in the middle of a social context
The effects of the new technologies will not be equally distributed: the sharp end will be felt most strongly in certain low-paid occupations and out in regional New Zealand (which is already struggling).
So don't be fooled into thinking that Robot nation is only about the future of work.
It isn't.
The biggest service its authors have done is to challenge us all to think carefully about the future we wish for ourselves, our neighbours and our children, and to make the right choices without "losing sight of the essence of being human along the way".
Robot nation is really about our sense of who and what we are as a nation.
This is not a debate to be left to the IT professionals - it's one we all need to grapple with.
If we fail to do so, it will be more Brave New World than Back to the Future.
-Professor Richard Shaw is Director - Bachelor of Arts (External Connections) and heads the Politics Programme at Massey University's College of Humanities and Social Sciences.
