[jjsheridan5]

Because of the creative and entrepreneurial nature of people, there will always be jobs to be done. What robots do will free people up to pursue other more creative and inventive projects ... That, and things always have to be fixed.

And when computers are better at creating and inventing new "projects"? And when computers can implement a person's idea with no substantive human involvement? And when computers can fix things better than a human can? These things are coming. Maybe not in the next couple of decades, but they are definitely in the pipeline.

But the more salient argument, often spoken, is that automation will simply open up demand, presumably in products/services that computers cannot implement at zero marginal cost. But that contention begs the question: why? While it is true that improvements in production have historically opened up new industries, there is actually no logical case that this will be true in the ongoing information revolution.

Any new demands will be more efficiently met by automated processes, and, when people can have access to a fully comfortable life without "work", how much incentive will they really have to labor just for those few things not provided by automation?

[marron]

In the end, a computer, robot, automated piece of machinery is always a tool employed by someone with will and imagination.

It allows you to multiply yourself.

People have infinite unmet needs, most of which they forego to meet the most necessary needs. When the cost of their met needs drops, thanks to automation, it becomes possible for them to pursue other unmet needs. As it becomes possible to build cars with ever fewer people, fewer people go into that business.

If people are stripped of their imagination and creative drive, you’ll have a socialist paradise where everyone sits waiting for someone to feed them and tell them what to do. If people continue to be creative and imaginative, then we will have an explosion of creation and exploration and invention.

It becomes important, as it already is, that people are inculcated with morality, creativity, and a work ethic. Yes, there will always be losers and people prepared to manipulate them. But that does not have to be whole story. There is a moral component; freed from the need to work to eat, would you sit or would you find something creative to do? Economics is creation and creative people.