Week 10 Response -- What Happens When Machines do All the Work?

This post is a response to the question posted by Hive account@llyran-noble :"If machines could do all the work that is currently being done, would there be no work left for humans to do?"

I think we had better hope so.

It has seemed like since the industrial revolution, humanity has made leaps and bounds in doing less manual labor. Much of farming an manufacturing is now done by machines to the point where you might be surprised if something is made by a person. Man made goods have become valuable because they are scarce. As a result, people who would have worked manufacturing have to find work somewhere else. Jobs are created in the creation and maintenance of this automation, but the jobs are fewer and require more skill, and thus there are less labor options for those in society who are unskilled and cannot for various reasons acquire skill.
With more and more work becoming virtual, other areas of work are in danger of being monopolized by machines. Things like accounting, which require a degree and some advanced knowledge of the subject, but are not particularly creative, could be fully automated in the near future. Accountants who are far less efficient and more expensive than a computer will be pushed out of the labor force and forced to find other, less attractive jobs to make a living.
There is potential for most in not all human labor to be replaced by a computer, with the possible exception of especially creative work. Modern societies need to be cognizant of this reality and have mechanisms in place for those who are displaced in their jobs by machines. People choose a job in general because it is the job they value most. If they are displaced from that job, then they must find one they value less. In a world where all but the most creative jobs can be replaced by computers, creative jobs will become/are already the most valuable. So, once displaced, people will only be able to move to more jobs that can be done by machines. I think that the end result could be a world with a class of creative types and owners of machines, with the rest of the world filling a class unable to work. This future society where machines do most of the work could be either dystopian or utopian, but if it going to be the latter, it needs to support those whose labor is replaced by machines.