It will definitely be interesting when all the mcjobs (which, correct me if I'm wrong, have been the main area of job growth since 2008) start to be automized. On one hand, it might give people incentive to get more technical educations, since people will still have to take care of the machines. But there will definitely be some growing pains in the next 10-20 years.
Then again, if one machine does the work which used to be done by twenty people, one guy maintaining it is probably not going to make that much of a difference. The way I see it, the solution will be: - dystopian police state full of poor and broken people and a few rich overlords,
or
- basic income for a significant portion of the population, with additional rights of ressource consumption earned through work
or
- a significant reduction of the population. I do have a clear favorite. The other two are the reason I tend to get nervous when I learn about things like the militarization of police, total surveillance or all the recent sabre rattling.
We have a hard enough time as it is to get people to appreciate the purposes that our current social welfare programs have. Something like basic universal income would be a very hard sell.basic income for a significant portion of the population, with additional rights of ressource consumption earned through work