I continue to believe in the idea that automation/AI will destroy entire sectors currently requiring labor. It is something that happens gradually, then suddenly.<p>I also believe there's "safe" sectors where this is unlikely to ever happen. Good luck making a robot plumber. By the time you solve that, you've solved everything and we're entirely obsolete.<p>Package delivery, cash registry, retail jobs...there's plenty of high employment sectors at danger. And perhaps many office jobs are at even more danger.<p>One idea is that "as always" we simply move on to "higher order" work. This is nonsense. We don't need billions of AI programmers, it would be really crappy AI if that was the case. Nor is it realistic that everybody can do such a demanding job. We're talking about billions of relatively lowly educated workers here.<p>Another idea is UBI, or even better...post scarcity. For the optimists, I guess.<p>I expect that neither will happen, instead we're already experiencing the solution. You just inject trillions of stimulation money into the economy, which creates (artificial) demand, hence allowing for jobs that otherwise might not exist.<p>Right now, somebody is inventing potato chips flavor #31,122. Nobody asked for it, the world doesn't need it, and I hope we can agree that it's unimportant. But somebody invents it anyway, somebody designs the packaging, and somebody ships it. You buy it, and might just like it.<p>All these activities aren't really demand or need driven, they're more like "because we can" jobs. Our world is largely supply and marketing driven, not demand driven from the bottom up. Fluff and endless meaningless luxuries. When I walk through a mall I wonder...do people really buy all this garbage?<p>Put harshly, you can call all of this bullshit jobs. Keeping each other busy. And that's what we'll continue to do no matter the state of technology. It's just a few dials in the financial system.<p>Have you never wondered why everybody deeply cares that one has a job (at any and all costs) yet there's never any serious inquiry about the point of the job? Nobody cares if you have a meaningless job, the point is that you have a job. Any job. This reality gives away how the system works.