In a sidebar to Mary-Ann Russon’s International Business Times report about which jobs are least and most prone to technological unemployment, umpires are listed as having a 98.3% chance of being replaced by robots. I can’t speak to umpires in other sports, but I would assume in American baseball, sensors could already do as good or better a job calling balls and strikes.

An excerpt:

Jobs least likely to be automated

The jobs that are least likely to be automated include jobs in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) industries, such as engineers, scientists, astronomers, architects, surgeons, psychologists, dentists, chiropractors, opticians, electricians and dietitians.

Jobs where a greater amount of personal care and in-depth attention are required were also very unlikely to be automated, such as therapists, teachers, personal trainers, choreographers, air traffic controllers, archaeologists, fashion and set designers, the clergy, lawyers, vets, the police, dancers, journalists, firefighters, tour guides, public relation specialists and most computer-related professions.

Jobs most likely to be automated

In contrast, jobs that required a lot of data to be processed or a great deal of routine in repeating the same task over and over again were very likely to be automated, such as bank tellers, loan officers, administrators, insurance underwriters in the finance industry, as well as retail roles like cashiers, retail assistants, telemarketers, sales executives and waitressing.

Also most at risk of automation are most repairman jobs, and most types of clerks that handle administration, whether the clerk be working in a hotel, a brokerage, an office, the mailroom, handling payroll or managing files.•