[BfloGuy]

The question is whether the segment of people who used to fill these jobs can be channeled towards other types of jobs or if we are facing a future where a large portion of people will have to be supported indefinitely because there won't be any place for them in the workworce.

If we keep going the way we have been for the past several decades, your question will be valid. But -- and this is also a response to the "close the borders" crowd -- if we remove the heavy taxes, unproductive regulations and the government-caused shrinking dollar; we will find that the economy will spring back to life.

People have been worrying about the effects of free trade and automation for centuries, and it's wrong to think that it's somehow different this time. Man must work to survive and he will. If government only lets him.

[JerseyanExile]

The great question though seems to be whether the advent of increasingly effective artificial intelligence is breaking down the traditional theories regarding automation and employment.

[Chainmail]

I wish I had your faith. I watched a newly-made combine in operation at a cousin's farm guide itself exactly on a course through his huge fields, harvesting the grain right up to inches from his fenceline. The on-board computer displayed the water content, the quantity and quality of the yield and the value of the crop and at the end of its run, poured the grain directly into the trucks for movement. All my cousin did was talk to me and watch it as it operated.

Most of these operations used to require many young men and women to execute but not anymore.

As an artillery designer, I oversaw the development of an automated artillery system that didn't require any people at all except to pass ammunition to it (I was never funded for an ammunition magazining system) and it achieved very fast response times and unbelievable accuracy. It also never got tired, never got sick and never got scared.

We need to recognize that we are on the cusp of the next developmental revolution and people will need to be able to find their own new directions.

Soon.

[Jeff Winston]

People have been worrying about the effects of free trade and automation for centuries, and it's wrong to think that it's somehow different this time.

Actually, it is different this time.

Technology changes things.

Always before, there were jobs people could go to. For the first time in human history, we're beginning to face a situation where technology can begin to handle so many different jobs that the prospects for people are starting to look grim.

This will do two things:

First, it will create more wealth, without people having to work for it. That part is good.

But it will also leave people unemployed. That part is bad.

Always before, the right answer to unemployment has been, "Get off your butt and go get a job."

But what if the jobs simply do not exist, because it's cheaper to hire a machine?

In that case, we may be forced into a new, more socialist society.