What does the future hold for our post-industrial society? After the power struggle of technological advancement vs. squeezed out middle-class plays out? Right now technology is being used as a scapegoat for inequality. Silicon Valley is minting millionaires left and right and our natural instinct is to blame those individuals for the inequality. But technical progress is inevitable and simply stopping it so that we can instill more equality into the system is backward thinking.
Technical progress is unstoppable and any job that’s repetitive will be automated out. The only skills of value when robots replace humans in all other tasks will be creative thought and creative process. This is where human thought and ingenuity will still shine.
But it will not be for all. At some point the government will have to step in and construct laws around the fact that so many have lost jobs. Government is slow to react but eventually (via democracy) it gets things right. The “slow acting” is built into the system so that no decision is made in haste. I imagine the new law will institute a stipend (basic income) that will allow for all members of society to live comfortably without actually having to do any work. Apart from the voluntarily chosen few who will need to oversee this new structure so that it doesn’t fall into anarchy. Simply the fact of existence will guarantee the individual a comfortable living.
This will be achieved by technological optimization and removal of inefficiencies from the system. In fact one could argue U.S. government is already doing so by spending inordinate amounts of money on war efforts (where little war is actually waged) and thus employing and creating hundreds of thousands of jobs in the process. At some point as a society we’ll realize this inefficiency in the system as well and simply start giving money to individuals directly.
But humans have the need to stay productive. It’s in our DNA (for now). For our own sake and mental stability, for majority of the population at least, we need to be performing work everyday. Even if in future we simply receive monthly installment from government that allows us to not work at all, I believe, majority of us will still feel the need to “produce”.
Enter society of Artists and Creators. I wonder, how the world immersed in all of this new, unlocked creative energy where people don't have to work to "earn" a living, but rather can "produce" out of their own creative thought and volition will look like?