I have to agree with the skepticism of other responses. The people most likely to be affected by automation are unskilled laborers — factory workers, cashiers, etc., who do not seem to be the focus of your article at all. And the problem is, in a society where if you are able-bodied and capable of work but not employed you’re deemed lazy and unworthy of help, a society where higher education costs skyrocket higher and higher and employers increasingly use “has a degree, any degree” to filter their enormous pile of applications — what do these people do, when their jobs are done by machines?
Don’t misunderstand me. I am in favor of automation. I think there are plenty of tedious jobs that we really don’t need to subject humans to anymore. However, unless automation comes with other fundamental changes — changes in access to higher education, changes in cultural attitudes to unemployment and changes to social support structures — automation is going to cause a huge crisis.
