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There are certain implications of this study which even conservatives do not want to contemplate.

First, a large unskilled population is not an asset but a liability. To those conservatives and liberals who want to flood the country with unskilled immigrants in order to prop up Social Security, consider that these people will not contribute but will subtract from the gross domestic product.

Second, Ponzi schemes such as Social Security which depend on an ever-increasing base of wage earners for the pyramid to continue are in for real trouble if lower-class workers are replaced with machines.

Third, if humans can be replaced by computers in the private and domestic sphere they can be replaced at a wholesale level among the military forces. Increasingly large populations will not be the foundation upon which mighty defense forces are erected. Strong economies will remain indispensable to strong defense but those economies will be digital economies. Conservatives believe that we have to increase the population to stay strong are only courting weakness. In the future large population centers will not be so much an asset but targets.

Fourth, to the degree that we parcel out healthcare in this country based on employment status, that will have to be changed. I am not suggesting a single-payer system but I am suggesting that employers will look at computerizing their jobs because computers don't get sick and they don't get sick leave, pregnancy leave, or require ever-increasing medical insurance payments. Moreover, the government is much less inclined to regulate business to protect machines.

Fifth, income taxes are at least partially Texas on wages but wages might be decreasingly how wealth is accumulated in the future as machines take over more and more of production. The challenge for conservatives will be to find a way to fund the government by taxing the output of machines without introducing socialism, without confiscating property and without creating disincentives to computerize and produce.

Sixth, education will have to be radically reformed in order to create a workforce which can create and program the machines used to produce widgets and provide services. Much like our Social Security system and our healthcare system which are based on wage earning, our educational system used to be based on wage earning and now is based on social engineering. Both models will have to be abandoned and education will have to be demonstrably related to producing talent which is usable. This is primarily a political problem.

Seventh, as the world becomes increasingly technological a higher and higher percentage of the population will reveal themselves to be incapable of contributing. They will prove an increasing drag on the economy and they will be exploited by demagogues who will attempt to prohibit businesses from hiring only people with talent enough to contribute. Race will be invoked. Somehow this must be solved.

Quite right. In the Star Trek universe I always wondered about all the people who did not aspire to be the best and brightest. What did they do to survive in such a technological society?

The same issues were touched upon in other sci-fi classics such as Orwell's “1984” and Huxley's “Brave New World”.Orwell culled the world through constant wars between superpowers and an all powerful police state. Huxley relied on eugenics: test tube breeding and stunting of intellect so that the lower classes would be content with their limited existences.

To date, no one seems to have thought about the three choices or paths humanity must face: 1) say that we have invented all there is to invent and know all there is to know [freeze all development and progress]; 2) junk technology and go back to a more primitive time [the Luddite ideal]; 3) pursue technology full throttle and accept the costs on society this technology brings for good or ill.

In the first instance, freezing development, humans are driven to find better ways and invent new things. This enforced stagnation cannot work for any length of time.

In the second case, the Luddite society, people are too attached to the ease that technology has brought them. Even the Greenies don't want to give up their electric lights, smart phones, iPads, grocery stores, central air and heating, running water, and indoor plumbing. Very few of them would relish living in a cave, wearing animal skins, hunting and gathering, fighting off other tribes, and thinking of 40 years old as “ancient”.

No, the third option is what humanity has embraced — technology — and we cannot go back to either of the first two scenarios. However, technology is a two edged sword. The more technological your society becomes, the less able it is to cope when the technology breaks. A simple example: a tornado devastates an area and wipes out the phone lines and electric lines. People are then forced into living in the 19th century; they'll do anything to get communications and power back to “normal”.

The nature of society and its jobs must change due to the impact of increasing technology.

So far, our current system is NOT able to make this basic transition.

Very good points. Along with the changes in employment brought by technology, there will be parallel changes in how people can provide services and value to businesses. I have read many articles, like this one, where the premise is that technology will allow employers to replace employees with machines. But few ever explore the opposite scenario.

As surely as businesses can use technology to reduce the need for man hours of effort, people can too. That's why my lawn guy can cut the lawn way faster than I can. He's got better tools than I do - a larger tractor, better mowers, and an air blower instead of a rake. And he knows how to use them very well.

The same is true for many other types of work. It used to be only businesses could afford to own computers, and hired employees to operate them. Now kids own computers and bring their own wordprocessor, spreadsheet, etc. to work.

Soon after robots are available to do complicated tasks in business, individuals will have similar robots. And then they may well send their personal robot in to the shop to work for them on Mondays and Fridays.

All of your points about future trends apply as well to individuals taking advantage of the same technology to empower themselves. We are seeing a bit of that now with how people use smart phones and internet resources to benefit themselves and enable new ways of working. But we need to see a lot of changes in education, taxation, government, and the nature of employment to take advantage of what technology has to offer.