There is a good deal of discussion in the media of the impact over the next few decades of computer-based mechanisation or automation of waged work. This is seen by some as a threat, through creating large scale unemployment, by others as leading to a society of leisure in which robots and other machines ‘do all the work’. Predictions are made of huge losses of jobs in all areas of waged production, citing existing practice or, more speculatively, possible applications of existing types of computer-guided machine.