Robots are coming for our jobs - here are 15 they're already taking over

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Mail Postal

REUTERS/Oleg Popov

Postal workers may be out of a job in the not-so-distant future

Thanks in part to automated mail sorting systems, postal workers may be out of a job in the not-so-distant future.

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By 2024, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics projects a 28% decline in postal-service jobs, totaling around 136,000 fewer positions than 2014.

Mail carriers and processors aren't the only ones whose jobs are disappearing thanks to robots.

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Automation technologies that conduct physical, intellectual, or customer service tasks are already affecting a variety of fields, most notably metal and plastic machine workers.

As Business Insider previously reported, information technology research and advisory firm Gartner predicts that one-third of jobs will be replaced by software, robots, and smart machines by 2025. And Ray Kurzweil, director of engineering at Google, takes that prediction a step further with his prediction that by 2029 robots will have reached human levels of intelligence capable of taking over purely intellectual tasks.

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While what the experts are calling "The Second Machine Age" strikes fear into the hearts of many workers, some experts argue that this increase in computing prowess will simply eliminate old jobs and introduce new ones, resulting in a net-zero effect - or even an increase in jobs. And these new jobs may be safer and more interesting.

For now, based on the BLS's occupational outlook data, here are 15 American jobs that are already on their way out thanks to robots: