The good news is that many of us will probably be safe in our jobs for some time to come. The researchers predict there is a 50% chance that machines will be capable of taking over all human jobs in 120 years.

“One of the biggest surprises was the overall lateness of the predictions”, says Grace. “I expected the amazing progress in machine learning in recent years, plus the fact that we were only talking to machine learning researchers, to make the estimates earlier.”

So what does this mean for the coming years and decades?

In-creasing unemployment?

The survey suggest machines could also be folding laundry by 2021. So, if you work at a laundromat, is it time to throw in the towel? Perhaps not.

Machines that can fold clothes do already exist: roboticists at the University of California, Berkeley, have already developed a robot that can neatly fold towels, jeans and t-shirts.

Admittedly, it took the robot nearly 19 minutes to pick up, inspect and fold a single towel in 2010, but by 2012, it could fold a pair of jeans in five minutes and a t-shirt in a little over six minutes. Perhaps most excitingly, though, the robot can even take on the tedious task of pairing socks.

But despite this progress, it could be some time before robots like this are able to replace humans.