We are entering a profound period of society and human history. In the 2020s and 2030s, we will see major technological shifts driven primarily by the private sector which will change the nature of employment, the nature of unemployment and the nature of work itself.
In the 2020s, billions of service, industrial, manufacturing and transportation jobs will be automated out of the workforce because of advances in Robotics & Weak Artificial Intelligence. I predict that it won't be long until billions of white collar jobs will follow and become automated as well in the 2030s as well with the last jobs around being hardware and software developers in the AI, Robotics and IoT Space probably around the early 2040s at which point we will experience the Singularity.
The Singularity is the point at which AI Intelligence equals or exceeds that of humans and where we have Strong AI which is at a level of intelligence and autonomy much higher than the AIs of today.
For the next 2-3 decades, this automation run-up will cause mass hysteria and may help fuel populism leaders such as the ones we have today (Donald Trump is a great example for starters & fed on Rust Belt Fears of Globalism to win the 2016 US election). Technology companies will drive the massive societal disruptions armed with a workforce of top AI & Robotics programmers and developers. These companies, their shareholders and their investors will do really well. I believe this is when capitalism will be at its strongest and companies and investors will start to make tons of return by investing heavily in AI & Robotics. However, it won't matter for much longer.
As the global workforce shrinks year over year and blue collar and white collar workers scratch their heads asking what the hell just happened, they won't have jobs and they won't have income. This will reduce their consumption which will reduce demand and sales of the companies who are selling products. They won't have anyone to sell products to because they fired their workforce and now their former employees do not have money to buy whatever it is they are selling.
However, when the last programmers and developers automate themselves as well out of the workforce by creating an AGI or Strong AI, what will happen to our society? I think we will live in a vastly new age. Around the same time this will occur, I think nanotechnology developments will have progressed at the rate where we will be able to 3D Print anything we want. We will have a period of Abundance in a Post-Automation and Post-Singularity age where we will not need to worry about scarcity and resources. Even if resources start to become scarce, humans and AI will work together and try to become a spacefaring civilization where we venture to other habitable planets and colonize them.
At this point the rules of the world we live by today - where we have to work for money to survive - become meaningless.