by exploited » Thu Mar 30, 2017 8:45 am
Of course it won't "end" people being employed. There will always be a workforce of some kind. At issue is the requirements and prerequisites for joining that workforce. The simple fact is that the majority of people are not and will never be able to be a programmer. They will never understand how to write software or fix robots. There is a large swath of people who are incapable of performing any job beyond simplistic, routine tasks that require a minimal of intellectual ability. For most of history, these people become labourers of some sort. They work on production lines, they weed fields, they go into construction, etc. Of course, all of those jobs are going to go away. Automation will take over manufacturing, with limited jobs available for robot technicians. Cars will be diagnosed and fixed remotely, and car ownership itself will likely disappear. Construction will be done by giant 3D printers. Even labour mainstays like farming are undergoing a massive automation drive.
Now, it is conceivable, as your article mentions, that such people will turn into artists and therapists and yoga instructors - in other words, that the service industry will provide jobs for them. Of course the absurdity of a society where 80% of the population is dedicated to doing your nails or bringing you food is obvious. Such a society will never be sustainable because those services will not be able to justify any sort of living wage. When there are tens of millions of therapists and yoga instructors, how much can they really charge for their work?
Spider, to his credit, was absolutely correct to describe your beliefs as a religion. I hate to break it to you, but the Industrial Revolution was basically insignificant compared to the changes that we are seeing now. The internet, robots, AI, machine learning, cyber-enhancements, etc. have and will fundamentally change everything, not just how cloth is made or whether workers are paid piecemeal or hourly. It is an entirely different world. I would even go so far as to say that we are witnessing the birth of an entire new genus - homo digitalis. The closest historical analogy I can think of is the transition between hunter-gathering and agriculture, which altered every single aspect of humanity, even our genes and evolutionary direction.