And there's the rub. When you replace jobs that people have with automation you are essentially removing that job from the job market permanently. Yeah, you can retrain people to do other jobs. But with everyone being replaced by automation that means that more people will be looking for jobs in a narrowing job market. Which means that: 1: Not everyone is going to get a job because there simply will not be enough positions to fill due to how many applicants there are vs actual jobs. 2: By increasing the amount of people looking for a job in a given field, such as the aforementioned engineering field, the wages for those positions will drop. Which means even more people making less... all due to automation. So what happens when engineers are now making minimum wage? (slightly hyperbolic admittedly....hopefully...) Those engineers will be doing the same thing that McDonalds employees are doing...hollering for a raise in pay. And maybe, while engineering is not easily replaced with machines, there are some engineering jobs that can be. Such as mechanical engineering or electrical engineering. And companies will do it because in the long run it is cheaper to automate.
Eventually we'll get to a point where people can do some things that automation simply cannot do. Such as the creation of things like art, study of science, etc etc. Maybe by then we'll have a society that isn't as dependent on money as we are now, I don't know. But between now and then, something is going to have to be planned and it HAS to be a long range plan. This is not something that a bandaid can be put on in order to kick it on down the road. We need to start considering this NOW and plan for it. The reason being is that if we are to do this properly then small changes need to be made over a relatively long length of time in order to not cause chaos and to get people used to the idea. Yeah, I know, "small changes?" ... yes, small changes. Small things always lead to big things. There isn't a thing in this world that isn't made up of small things. In other words, small things can, over time, make BIG changes when its all added up in the end.
