A CITIZEN'S income should be introduced to protect potential mass job losses that could be caused by automation if work traditionally carried out by humans is taken over by robotic machinery, campaigners have said.

The call came after a study into Artificial Intelligence said that one in every six jobs in Scotland's public sector could be lost within 14 years due to automation.

The annual "state of the state" report from business advisory firm Deloitte estimated that 88,000 jobs could go and that administrative and operative roles were at greatest risk.

However, former SNP deputy leader Jim Sillars warned that the scale of job losses was likely to be more “devastating” than the unemployment suffered in Scotland during the 1980s and 1990s with the decimation of heavy industry.

Sillars, who has campaigned on the issue, said that the only way to protect living standards was to introduce a universal 'citizen’s income', which would mean a radical transformation of the welfare state with the ditching of means-tested benefits in favour of a flat-rate payment.

The move for a citizen’s income was also backed by Scottish Green co-leader Patrick Harvie, whose party has long since campaigned.

Labour's Shadow chancellor John McDonnell has also previously said that the concept of an unconditional payment to all could prepare people for the 'robotisation' of the workforce

However, Sillars, who was a Labour MP for South Ayrshire in the 1970s, before later representing Glasgow Govan at Westminster for the SNP in the late 1980s and early 1990s, said the changes associated with automation were not being taken seriously by most politicians.

Sillars said: "The report reflects the paper presented by the Bank of England chief economist who pointed out that 15 million jobs could disappear out of the UK. It's not been taken seriously and that's what disturbs me.

"There's no politicians talking about this and there's no indication that any of the major parties know what's happening. There was no discussion at the SNP, Labour or Tory conference about this. They have yet to wake up to this problem and what's happening."

Sillars, who was SNP deputy leader from 1991 to 1992, said: "It's something that can't be stopped anymore then the tide can. So many jobs are at risk and we need to ask how do people live without work?

"A critical question is how does the state provide an adequate income for those people? My view is that it has to be the universal citizen's income. I can't think of any other way.

"We have to look at the bigger issue of how since Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden work has been central to the human condition. What happens to society when there is a huge worklessness?

"It's artificial intelligence and is an entirely different dimension to deindustrialisation. It will be much more devastating."

The move for a citizen’s income was also backed by Green MSP Patrick Harvie, whose party has long since campaigned on the issue.

Harvie, a Glasgow Green MSP, said: "There is a longstanding case for a citizen's income and we can see that there is an increasing appetite for this with the changes that are happening in our economy.

"The idea of a universal citizens income for people to protect basic standards of living would fit better than the bureaucratic social security system we currently have."

Meanwhile, the Deloitte report said administrative and operative roles were at greatest risk. The report also said technology could help deliver more efficient public services by making it easier for the workforce to do their jobs.