Hitchhiking robot hitchBOT may have met an early demise, but the robot revolution is still on its way.

Big thinkers like Bill Gates and Stephen Hawking reckon robots are going to take our jobs.

We've already got automated bricklayers capable of laying 1000 bricks an hour, and artificially intelligent call centre staff are under development.

When the robot revolution comes, it won't be the first time technology has caused the disappearance of entire employment sectors.

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Here are eight jobs that no longer exist, or are vanishing fast:

Rat catchers

William Murphy was undisputedly a hard man. The Wellington rat catcher bagged thousands of rodents during World War I and the years thereafter.

Wellington rat catcher William Murphy caught and killed rats with his bare hands. Photo: supplied

The National Library archives reveal an extraordinary account of Murphy demonstrating his unique skills to a gobsmacked reporter:

"The rat tried to spring and bite, but it was too late. Murphy's terrible hand had got him. One despairing squeak, and it was all over."

As if that wasn't enough, he groped around the beams of the building, scooped up another four rats in a single hand, and killed them:

"As proud as a tamer of wild beast, Murphy surveyed his handiwork. His hand was bleeding from three or four places from bites, but this did not interfere with the triumph of his work."

The rat catcher's traditional traps and terriers have been largely replaced by poisons such as warfarin, which have reduced infestations in built-up areas.

However, the industry could be seeing a revival, with Victoria University recently offering a bounty of beer in exchange for dead rats.

Firemen

No, not the heroic ladies and gents who ride in the red trucks.

Railways were mostly steam-powered until the 1950s, and it was the back-breaking job of stokers, also known as "firemen", to feed the engine with coal.

One fireman described the intense labour of feeding the locomotive as "a good kinda tired". Photo: Arnd Wiegmann/Reuters

The decline happened on two fronts; steam power becoming obsolete and the rail network itself falling out of favour.

Branch lines were torn up, stations closed and demolished.

The Railways Department used to be the biggest employer in the country, with 27,000 staff in 1950. Today, Kiwirail has just over 4100 staff.

Tram drivers

Trams also went the way of the steam engine. They were a major form of transport for almost a century, but started getting replaced by buses in the 1950s.

The 2013 census recorded 12 individuals who reported their occupation as tram driver.

Presumably they're operating New Zealand's two remaining heritage lines; the Motat track in Auckland, and the central city loop in Christchurch.

Former Christchurch City councillor Barry Corbett became a part-time tram driver last year. Photo: John Kirk-Anderson/Fairfax NZ

Professional deer culler

In the 1930s the government started paying hunters to head into the backcountry and slow the rapid spread of deer.

Barry Crump, second from left, pictured with fellow cullers at the Ruatahuna base in 1954. Photo: supplied

It was rough, gruelling work that spawned the iconic bushman figure, epitomised by Barry Crump's 'good keen man'.

State-funded culling started fading out in the 1970s, when commercial hunters shooting from helicopters became more common.

At the latest census, 255 people still identified their profession as hunter-trapper.

The legacy of the original bushmen also lives on through a world-renowned network of huts, tracks and foot bridges still in use today.

Milkmen

In the 1956 census, only about half the population had access to a refrigerator.

That meant most households were very familiar with the rattle of glass milk bottles as the milkman made his daily rounds.

Wellington milkman Peter Julius in the early 1980s. Photo: supplied

Empties would be placed on the mailbox or in a milk crate, and swapped out for fresh ones.

The decline of the milkmen was driven by fridges becoming cheap enough for everyone to own them, combined with the advent of supermarkets.

Switchboard operators

It's hard to conceive in this connected world that there were people who physically connected every single phone call by moving individual wires.

From left: Adrienne McGregor, Denny Hodges and Keith McKay operating Inglewood's manual telephone switchboard in January 1978.

While it's all done digitally these days, operator jobs were still around until the 1980s.

The job was often done by women, who tended to be both more courteous and a cheaper form of labour.

Posties

Tareta Tere runs her colleague Gareth Wilson through a new route. Photo: Don Scott/Fairfax NZ

The internet is slowly killing snail mail. With letter volumes dropping like a stone and the switch to every-other-day delivery, NZ Post has axed hundreds of jobs.

Parcels can't be sent by email, but they can be sent by courier - until the drones take over, of course.

Video store clerks

Movie HQ's Stephen Loo has closed his Mt Eden video store after 11 years. Photo: Elesha Edmonds/Fairfax NZ

Every few weeks there's another story of a video store closing its doors for good, the latest of which was Movie HQ in Auckland's Mt Eden.

Owner Stephen Loo said the decline had been rapid over the last few months.

Online streaming services like Netflix and Lightbox are cutting the physical stores' lunch, but Loo reckoned the industry's biggest threat was illegal downloading.

"It's rife and rampant to the point where customers are talking to us about their streaming at home."

What other jobs in sunset industries do you reckon will disappear soon? Share your thoughts in the comments below.