Worse, it was just almost all horses. There are a few in Central Park pulling tourists and that’s enough for the Pollyanna’s to point to and go “See! We’ll be fine!”
This is the Chinese century, and even if China charts a somewhat different course than Western capitalism, it still believes that human beings should spend most of their days in some employment, even if it is just makework. A population with mostly leisure time is viewed as very threatening to social stability. I can see that model being exported to the rest of the world far more than I can imagine your utopia.
The Chinese social-safety net, for individuals not covered by unemployment insurance, is strongly centered around public sector jobs (公益性岗位) that, if you see them in practice, are often plainly makework: the essence of the work has been mechanized/automated, but human beings will still be directed to be somewhere all day and look busy. There is no paying those people a dole while they stay home like in sone other countries.
Many of these jobs are things that improve quality of life for everyone else, too, like street beautification programmes. They do this alongside coming up with robotic means to also sweep streets, but yes, they find ways to hire people to just "make this place look nicer".
zug_zug · · focus · HN ↗
There’s no quick answers, but intuitively I think we all get that the % of jobs not doable by AI and robotics approaches 0 over time.
Pet_Ant · · focus · HN ↗
ForHackernews · · focus · HN ↗
HN: A site full of bold futurists where it's easier to imagine the end of the humanity than the end of capitalism.
TFNA · · focus · HN ↗
someonebaggy · · focus · HN ↗
TFNA · · focus · HN ↗
trollbridge · · focus · HN ↗