The National Intelligence Council, in a report titled that was released last week, offered its long-range strategic thinking about the military and economic challenges the U.S. will face from other countries over the next 17 years, as well as the environmental challenges ahead. The report also looks at technologies, and it includes some sweeping ideas about the future.

IT workers have long been familiar with the ways that advances in automation have reduced the need for people, . By 2025, robotics technology will be far enough along to take over low-skilled jobs, according to the NIC.

That could provide benefits, such as enabling robots to be used to help . But the machines also may be far enough along "to disrupt unskilled labor markets," the NIC said, adding that they could also affect immigration patterns by taking over some jobs now performed by migrant workers.

Vendors such as MobileRobots Inc. already are offering products that provide an idea of . Meanwhile, a British artificial intelligence researcher wrote a book last year predicting that humans will robots by 2050.

The NIC's report doesn't address that possibility. But it does say that robotic technologies may be used to augment human capabilities, much like in the 1970s television show The Six Million Dollar Man and its spin-off The Bionic Woman. At the extreme end, the report foresees the possible development of an exoskeleton resembling "a wearable humanoid robot, that uses sensors, interfaces, power systems and actuators to monitor and respond to arm and leg movements, providing the wearer with increased strength and control."