Yeah, like automobiles put farriers out of work, but it did not happen overnight, and people adjust and find new jobs. Like car mechanics. If more cars are constantly on the road, there will be a need for a lot of maintenance, etc... I'm not worried one bit even in the short term.
The way I see it, automation destroys jobs for stupider people and creates jobs for smarter people. Ten jobs making widgets are replaced by one job as a widget robot repairman (and 0.001 of a job of a widget robot designer) and bam, we're making ten times more widgets. But the job of robot repairman is a more intellectually difficult job than the factory workers had in the first place.
Hundreds of years ago, 95% of jobs could be done with a two-digit IQ, because they were things like ploughing fields and herding goats. But we've been automating all the easy jobs and creating new, more fulfilling jobs, and getting richer in the process.
At some point though, which I think is right about now, we cross the point where less than 50% of the jobs can be done with a two-digit IQ. We no longer need manual labourers, we need people who can design and maintain robots. And the fact is that 50% of the population is of below-median intelligence and will have trouble doing these new jobs.
What do we do with all these people who are incapable of performing any worthwhile role? In the longer run perhaps we can genetically engineer people so that everyone can be a robot engineer. But in the meantime?
So yeah, I think it is a genuine problem we're going to have to face eventually.
There's still tons of jobs where you don't high IQ to do. Shopkeepers, bartenders, and the whole artisan category where more qualification is required but not that much either (plumbers, bakers, farmers and the like). And it will be very hard to make them go away anytime soon (and probably not worth it even if it's possible). On top of that there's a resurgence of the value of handmade stuff vs industrial articles (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etsy for example) since richer people value stuff that's unique rather than what's cheap.
Again, just like every single time of Changes in History, people adapt.
We could use a lot more of those people who spend the time and energy to care about each other. I'm more worried about the fact that there's zero school/educational investment in EQ, than about the rising tide of "too low IQ to be able to work"...
I think the narrow view of what's coming is a simple basic income, but that term omits the societal seachange that it will kick off. Eventually life, comfort, and pleasure will become decoupled from an obligation to work, or at least labor. It could be seen as the end of labor, or a "right to flourish" that people will take for granted in a few hundred years. And once that threshold is crossed, I think the future of humanity becomes utterly unpredictable to all of us living in present times.
It would indeed be good times, but even if we are able to do so, will we be willing? There are a lot of things to sort out economically, politically, societally, psychologically, etc
For example, if it is "fair" for society to take 50% of the earnings of the class who owns all the robots, is it also fair for that class to ask (just for example) that those earnings aren't spent perpetuating a lifestyle of another class who tends to not shower, sleep on the sidewalk, pee in stairwells, yell at people on the sidewalk, etc. And if it's an underlying mental illness problem, then that person is taken off the street and treated, against their will if necessary?
This is just a simple contrived example, you can imagine all sorts of your own scenarios across the spectrum of human activity, add in cultural variances and issues of international immigration for extra fun.
But in all of these, if what is asked of group (a) is ok, but what is asked of group (b) is considered a "violation of their basic human rights" (or whatever), which I expect will be the case (see current day Europe), I think this utopia is much further away than many think.
They have an ageing population, declining birthrate and an aversion for immigration.
They actually need robots do the menial tasks in society since no human is going to be around to do it.
If you imagine robots are going to show up and clean the streets in Japan you are in for a massive disappointment. This kind of things will never happen on time for when they need it, and Japan is not known to be the most innovative country they used to be anymore. They lost it about 20 years ago.
And you don't want to dismiss Japan's (a) technology ability and (b) commitment to robotics. Sony, Panasonic and Toshiba lead the world in many sensor technologies in particular visual that would be relevant to cars, robotics and other automated systems.
Most importantly their culture is more conducive to it, case in point the robot run hotel:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-19/japanese-hotel-run-by-...