As AI & robotics advance, many predict automation is quickly approaching and will inevitably mean the loss of countless human jobs.
This is what they said about the industrial revolution, but we found more jobs to do. But consider that in the coming decades AI will have algorithms so sophisticated that AI will be able to write a best-selling novel or screenplay, or write hit songs,so it causes alarm & will be a different beast. They say we'll work in the service industry, but they could make robots that pass the Turing Test and be nicer & better looking than most of us...where do we have a role?
So if there's a wave of unemployment, how do we make it work for us? One option is universal basic income. Imagine a society where robots/AI are doing most of the work for us, and many of us will finally have the increased leisure time that Marx predicted. Since AI is doing all the work, & corporations will own most of them, profits will concentrate evermore into the hands of the wealthy as many unskilled folk remain unemployable. This could mean taxing the wealthy so that regular folk have an income to live & purchase goods. Or will we just find some kind of jobs to do? Like managing all of these AI? (Can't they mostly manage themselves?)
We have to be careful not to be too optimistic here, because we've seen what has already happened to low-skilled manufacturing workers. Middle-aged white male Americans are dying at alarming rates due to suicide & "deaths of despair":
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/it-s-not-just-chris-cornell-suicide-rates-highest-among-n762221Joe Rogan has a guest who talks about it at the very beginning of this video here:
https://twitter.com/joerogan/status/1095483963970342912