From the factory floor to the supermarket, the call centre to the video store, it has happened to the working class already: waves of technological change that have rendered many of their jobs obsolete.
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But the next advances in automation won't just affect the low-skilled and low-paid. In the years ahead many middle-class professionals - engineers, accountants, journalists and insurance workers to name just a few - will find themselves replaced by computers, robots and artificial intelligence.
Technological change can be liberating but it also breeds anxiety. And if it's not managed properly it could also worsen inequality by further skewing the power balance in the workplace and across society.
This is the central message of an upcoming book by federal Labor frontbencher Jim Chalmers and former NBN boss Mike Quigley: there is no such thing as "technological trickle-down". Without the right response, the economic gains achieved through increased productivity won't be shared.
"Some jobs will be lost, some will be created, some will be augmented but all of them will change. Our point is we should care how that change is distributed across our society," says Dr Chalmers.
A report by the University of Oxford last year found 57 per cent of jobs across the OECD were at risk of automation. Some of the world's finest thinkers - including acclaimed physicist Stephen Hawking - have warned this will lead to significant political and societal upheaval, ushering in a new age of unemployment and uncertainty.
In Changing Jobs: The Fair Go in the New Machine Age - due out in September - Dr Chalmers and Mr Quigley argue that right now, Australia is perilously ill-prepared for the changes to come. Schools, universities, workplaces, governments and, above all, individuals need to start changing now.
The authors bill themselves as an "odd couple": Quigley is a technologist and baby boomer businessman from Sydney; Chalmers a Gen X economics boffin and rising star of the parliament from Logan.
But both are worried about how Australia will cope with the changes ahead.
They reject the "let it rip" crowd who cheer on technological change with no regard for wealth distribution or the transitional impact on real people. They put Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in this camp.
Equally, they reject those - embodied by populist politicians like Donald Trump or, here at home, Pauline Hanson - who think it is possible to resist technological change or even turn the clock back to simpler times.
Rather, the authors say we should embrace technology but ensure growth is inclusive, work is rewarded and there is a strong new social safety net to catch those left behind. That involves intervening to correct market failures, increasing investment in education and lifelong learning, and rethinking industrial relations.
Strong leadership will be essential to - in the words of Canadian thinker Michael Ignatieff - hold in check "the power of the barons enriched by the new technologies".Mr Quigley said: "I am hoping that in writing this book with Jim we can make some small contribution to the debate that will lead to businesses, governments and Australian citizens working together to ensure that technology can improve the lives of all Australians in the decades ahead."
