The rise in automation is going to bring about huge changes in the jobs market, and some will be better prepared than others.

Efficiency in work. Man has always sought a better way to do more and, if possible, at a lower cost.

Simple machines such as levers, pulleys and inclined planes are found in the fossil record and were clearly part of the historic creation of the Great Pyramids and Greco-Roman construction.

Mass production was a need to achieve Henry Ford’s ostentatious goal of “a motor car for the great multitude,” hence, the first moving assembly line on a conveyor system which yielded a Model T every 90 minutes.

Today, our efficiencies are driven by the same process — to maximize output with the most streamlined productivity at the best cost. However, the productivities of 2017 include automation and robotics, which, in terms of labor, means a reduction in unskilled or lower skilled workers.

Today, almost all our transactions are computerized and digital ranging from the secure systems needed in banking to pumping fuel after you’ve engaged the process with your debit or credit card to using your smartphone app to order pizza. The magnitude of our technological growth goes a bit underappreciated.

In 1969, the Apollo 11 spaceflight that placed the first humans on the moon was done with a computer system, the Apollo Guidance Computer, with 64KB of memory and operated at 0.043MHz. NASA estimates that to be roughly the capacity of a modern pocket calculator. In a ZEMScience.com piece, NASA notes that “the iPhone 6’s clock is 32,600 times faster than the best Apollo era computers and could perform instructions 120,000,000 times faster.”

This progression from the proverbial Flintstones to the Jetsons creates a real change on the economy in the manufacturing, service and retail sectors.

The Ohio-based fast food chain, Wendy’s, began introducing customer order kiosks this year with the goal to have 1,000 restaurants, or 15% of their franchises, equipped by the end of 2017. The $230 billion convenience food industry features other chains moving to some aspect of the dining experience being facilitated by a computer rather than a person. Panera and McDonald’s are likewise in the process of incorporating automation for ordering and cooking. There’s even a robotic barista featured in a San Francisco local café, equipped to take PayPal for payment, making the process at Café X extremely fast after a customer orders their brew from their phone app. Just think, a cup of coffee without the Starbucks drama of politically correct cups and conversation.

Unquestionably, high-tech Millennials embrace kiosk and app ordering that creates the obvious transition from traditional service and labor structures within restaurants and retail outlets to a self-service, on-demand presentation and process. But don’t limit your thinking of automation to only dining and retail check-out.

The pursuit is hot for self-driving cars and trucks in the automotive race for the high-tech advantage of claims of safety and owner time management during commutes for automobile owners while the trucking industry will have even greater control of its fleet’s routes, speeds traveled and hours logged.

Manufacturing, however, is the sector with the greatest scale of impact as analyzed by The New York Times. Projecting that for every robot placed per one thousand workers, six of those laborers will lose employment with a reduction in wages at just under 1%.

Clearly, uniform and programmed outcomes are a result of an automated, robotic manufacturing system. Add the factor of wages and benefits and it becomes logical that manufacturing automation will only increase.

In a review of artificial intelligence (AI) published April 3, The UK Guardian compares a German auto worker making €40 (£34) per hour, about $38, to a robot’s financial burden that’s only €5 to €8 hourly, or $4.75-$7.60 per hour. The report declared, “A production robot is thus cheaper than a worker in China,” and that mechanical manufacturing worker doesn’t call in sick, go on strike or take family leave.

While our service at eateries and restaurants will be faster, companies employing a force of automatons along their assembly line should produce cheaper goods, and our roads — theoretically — will be safer, there’s a real issue ahead.

NPR has an interactive infographic that catalogs the most common occupation by state from 1978 through 2014. In 2014, the overwhelmingly most common occupation across America is truck driving. Avoiding the fight in the global labor market and automation, for now, 29 of America’s 50 states currently have more workers earning their paycheck driving a truck for local deliveries and tractor hauls for larger loads.

As minimum wage activists will certainly focus on the pool of workers in the fast-food industry, the real economic impact will occur with the introduction of self-driving trucks and robotics that replace wage earnings making upwards of $20 per hour with benefits.

Other industries, such as the hospitality industry, anticipate AI is on the horizon. The Guardian reports that robots resembling humans, “actroids,” are currently employed in the Henn-na Hotel of Sasebo, Japan, “receiving and serving guests” as hosts and “cleaning the rooms, carrying the luggage and, since 2016, preparing the food.”

Oh, and licensed professionals are not exempt from the introduction of AI. The Guardian notes that an intelligent algorithm was applied to the European Court of Human Rights’ decisions exposing patterns in the written pleadings. The algorithm “was able to predict the outcome of other cases with 79% accuracy.” This duplicated the recent study from Deloitte, a multinational consulting firm, that up to “100,000 jobs in England’s legal sector would be automated in the next 20 years.”

An irony is in the making. A couple of generations of high-tech young adults raised to think so highly of themselves and to have complete control of their “friends” via social media and all the world’s information within a single swipe of their smart device are about to compete with robots that aren’t seeking safe spaces or a balanced lifestyle.

The winners of the AI economy will be those who are pro-active in their commitment to lifelong learning to make sure they’re equipped for work involving critical thinking, the capacity to lead and manage. The dangers of this approaching AI economy will be those ill-prepared and uncommitted to personal development and valued educational training.

Where will humans fit in this next economic and innovative revolution? It all depends. The academic snowflakes will likely find themselves gobsmacked and blaming the world. Hard-working survivors will refine their skills and make their way.