If you think that reporting to a younger manager is a challenge or that managing upwards is tough, how well would you fare with a robotic boss?

• Do you earn your living today as a writer? By 2018 Gartner predicts that more machine tools will be able to convert data-based and analytical information into natural language writing. Content such as shareholder reports, white papers, legal documents, press releases (many media releases already read as if a robot had written them), and articles--are all candidates for automated writing tools. (Impact: 20% by 2018)

• The programmable economy is what Gartner is calling autonomous software agents untethered to humans and capable of holding value themselves--disrupting the existing financial services industry. (Timeframe: 2020) 

• Gartner predicts that by 2018 more than 3 million workers globally will have a "robo-boss" that can make human-type decisions made by today's managers, such as tracking performance measurements directly tied to workers output and processing peer and customer evaluations. Robo-bosses could learn to make faster decisions as well. (Timeframe: 2018)
  
  Over time and with the advancement of AI, could robo-bosses evolve to become more advanced in their ability to intuitively lead and even possess an assortment of EQ abilities? 
  
  

• Looks as if 2018 could turn into a rather disruptive time for industries, employers, and workers. Gartner extends it's prediction with an across-the-board look of the fastest growing companies--45 percent could have fewer employees than instances of smart machines--beginning with startups and newer companies. Think about all the human labor that goes into sourcing, hiring, onboarding, and training not to mention performance monitoring and you get a sense of the productivity and cost-effectiveness that would drive these types of decisions. (Timeframe: 2018)
  
  Fast Company sites an Oxford University study that looked at the total jobs created by "digital technologies" between 2000 and 2010, discovering that only 0.5% of the U.S. labor force was employed in industries that did not exist at the turn of the century. 
  
  

• Automation may start at the edges, but even executives and CEOs will be impacted according to McKinsey with 20 percent of a CEO's duties becoming automated.
  
  Robo-CEOs? They'd probably accept lower pay without a golden parachute. 

There are three primary ways of earning income today; one with your ideas, another getting paid for your time, and the third getting paid for your labor. Given where Gartner and even McKinsey see things going in future, particularly in the digital world, where could you make changes in the short term to take advantage of these trends that are just around the corner?  

Japan’s Asimo robot meets U.S. President Obama in 2014 (Photo credit: U.S. Embassy Tokyo via Flickr/Creative Commons)