We also talked about what would happen when robots did all the work...where would we get our income? Anyway, he said that the government would control the robots, what they made and their level of output and the government would send a check to everyone.
I'm a 77 YO retired chip-maker and my son is a 53 YO physicist.
My son said that the most impactful thing I ever did to advance his education was to give him this, many years ago.
(Ahem) Now, where is my $1,400.00 stimulus check.
Your son is very insightful. Govt wouldn't need to control the robots though, corps. like Amazon etc. could, and they'd be taxed to provide the checks - or as it will be called, universal basic income.
An interesting follow-up question is: what would all the unemployed people do? Perhaps we'd become the land of lotus-eaters. Virtual reality, artificial intelligence and robotics would be so good that a person could just plug into a matrix and exist in any virtual world of their choosing, permanently. Robotics could handle the bio-functions, UBI would take care of expenses, and instead of fentanyl and heroin, people could just spend their lives in a virtual Shire, Vulcan or that planet with the blue enviro-aliens.