The era of jobs is ending

Plausibility of “end of jobs”

• Some argue there is effectively infinite work; increased efficiency just shifts what humans do.
• Others counter that if AI/robots can do nearly all tangible and commercial work better and cheaper, most humans become economically redundant.
• Skeptics note physical bottlenecks (energy, land, materials) and that many tasks (plumbing, construction, healthcare, teaching, judgment-heavy roles) are far from full automation.
• Factory veterans dispute “lights-out” rhetoric, saying highly automated plants still rely heavily on skilled human troubleshooting.

Automation, R&D, and human capability

• One line of debate: can most people pivot to R&D or creative work once routine jobs disappear?
• One side cites decades of academic and psychological data suggesting only a minority can do high-level R&D.
• The other side argues current data is biased by existing life constraints; freed from survival work, many more could contribute intellectually, though evidence is unclear.

Income, UBI/UBS, and economic structure

• Central worry: if jobs vanish, how do people access food, housing, and services, and who sustains demand for production?
• UBI and variants (GBI, universal basic services) are proposed; some point to small-scale trials as promising, others note most are means-tested (GBI) rather than truly universal.
• Concerns include inflation/repricing of everything to soak up UBI, and who provides/incentivizes services if income is decoupled from work.
• Some argue that in a post-scarcity, highly automated economy, providing basics might be cheaper than managing unrest.

Power, inequality, and social stability

• Many fear extreme capital concentration: owners of AI/robotic means of production vs a surplus population with no bargaining power.
• Scenarios range from mass deprivation and “serf classes” to violent unrest, sabotage of critical infrastructure, or de facto culling via poverty.
• Others claim that at very high automation levels, excluding most humans is unstable; access to automated production becomes a matter of survival and thus politics, not markets.

Meaning, consumerism, and human behavior

• Some envision a “lives, not jobs” era where people do work for fulfillment, not survival.
• Critics point to real-world “abundance pockets” (deindustrialized regions with welfare + cheap entertainment) where many default to drugs and aimlessness, echoing Huxley’s “soma.”
• There’s disagreement whether most people, freed from necessity, would pursue higher aspirations or simply sink into low-effort consumption.