I've always thought basic income concepts will be necessary in the coming decades or else we will face upheavel coming from the current service sector. Think we are still a ways off but it's only a matter of time.

Quality of life improves. Nobody goes hungry. People find other things to do.

There's no doubt God created us to work, create, and to make beautiful things. "AI" doesn't change that.

It will be an interesting decade or two, but I do think these things will happen slower than I did two years ago.

Marketplace Money podcast did a neat series a year or two back about the future of jobs, covering the General Lud rebelion through the introduction of the spreadsheet, into a couple of actively automating manufacturing plants, and into the future and how it would affect white collar and blue collar jobs, and also a bit of talk about UBI.

One very interesting thing was that they predicted that automation was far better for developed countries compared to the 3rd world, as robots will take a lot more jobs in China compared to Kansas.

I just started to write a really long post and then decided that the upshot is "I dunno". The only thing I feel really confident about is that in the world of non-transactional professional careers, there's more work than workers and the trend will probably continue with more automation.

There are a number of obvious causes and apparently obvious effects of that fact, but it's more of a narrative than a mathematical/economical proof so who really knows.

They could all turn towards a trade. At least where I'm at, we need more electricians, plumbers, etc...

I toured the BMW Munich Plant last December, place is 99% automated but still employs a few thousand people.

There are still workers on the assembly line, the robotics systems raise/lower/rotate the chassis for the worker to install the part at the most ergonomic position - all based off an RFID chip in the workers coveralls.

The future, at least near term, is in human/machine interaction - not replacement by machine. AR has a real shot at changing the game for several industries as the technology takes leaps year over year.

In the meantime, it's on both employers and employees to up their skill sets to prepare for a more technically advanced workforce. The goal of the autonomous system set is to handle the difficult/dangerous tasks humans are bad at anyway.

Bare minimum, the conversation has to be underway at a government level on how to incorporate advances in AI to the future workforce.

AI and automation will be the next great revolution. The industrial revolution and information revolution (computers/internet) both drastically improved quality of life and I suspect this one will too. As per usual, the world will look very different in 20-30 years.

The impact of self driving trucks is much scarier than the impact of what is being put out there today.

In today's environment, companies are out there that can design an automated widget. However, each time they sell it, there is some level of custom engineering that goes into actually implementing that widget. This, along with capital, constrains how fast companies can implement automation, and usually gets offset by some level of job creation in other sectors/functions at a similar pace.

For example, there are dozens of companies that can design robots to build cars. However, they can't just sell the exact same thing to Toyota and Ford with no work - they need to design the robot to build Toyotas vs Fords, fit in a Toyota factory vs a Ford factory, etc. This takes time from engineers to make happen. Same for software - automated software can be purchased, but needs to be molded to the company it is being sold to.

However, once the self driving truck puzzle is solved (technically and financially) and infrastructure implemented, an 18 wheeler is an 18 wheeler is an 18 wheeler. There are a restively limited set of variations on trailers that need to be pulled - the industry has a lot of standardization. The only thing slowing companies down from executing this automation is how fast they can get capital to spend.

There are 3.5 million truck drivers in the US, and their jobs disappear in what will feel like overnight, and even though it will create jobs in manufacturing and maintaining these trucks, the truck drivers themselves likely aren't set up to move into these roles as quickly as their jobs will disappear. That's <2% of the US work force.

I don't know what impact that will have, but it will be a shock.

For the foreseeable future, those trucks are going to require a human driver though. If nothing else, as a safety back-up, for refueling, if a tire blows, etc....

Now I'm sure that may eventually change, but it's going to be a while before truck drivers are no longer required at all.

Human demand/desire is unlimited so I think there will always be jobs. Until everyone has a yacht in the Caribbean and one in the Med, and can retire at 35... I don't know what happens after that.

They don't need to employ as many people as they do at that plant. They're overemployed there, but they don't want to start laying people off because of the PR and backlash from the German government.

With the advent of Henry Ford's horseless carriage and the "assembly line," what will all the saddle makers and wagon wheel manufacturers do for a living?

Working with leather/wood/metal easily translates into producing other goods, or would at least give enough of a background working with tools on a daily basis to go find a job on an assembly line with minimal training.

Sitting in a truck all day doesn't lend itself to many other jobs.