I'd prefer to ask another question: is it time to change our society, to go away from paid jobs? A job is one of the things that currently defines us, one of the first questions you ask someone you just met is often to know what job they are in.
If all jobs were automated, we could have more interesting occupations: taking care of our childrens, elders, neighbors, growing our garden, reading, art, etc. Many sci-fi authors saw the job being automated and society changing toward this. The question is how to we make the transition.
It will be less drastic than people anticipate, as always with automation/ai. Different jobs will become more available and (hopefully) the value of those jobs will increase. Manual/tedious jobs that used to be considered low-brow will hopefully become "artisanal" or appreciated, and fill the gap.
A butcher used to be a respectable profession that would earn an honest days living. Maybe now, instead of a butcher working for his employer (with a cashier, accountant, manager, sales person), they will operate as their own employer. Other micro-focused based companies will handle the other needs for a fraction of the cost.
In the end, efficiency prevails with capitalism and tech in general.. Having a population with a low work force seems both inefficient and impractical. Life will find a way...
Allow me to be sentimental for a moment. I agree that some jobs, perhaps even most, can be done "better" by a robot. At least, if we're defining better as more cheaply or "to spec". However, when I go to a nice restaurant, I go because I enjoy the Chef's style, their ability to express their art through cooking. Sure, a robot could do something like that, especially at chains like Burger King, but for my personal incentive to dine at a restaurant, it's unlikely a robot could do a "better" job than a human chef.
That said, you're right, we need to avoid the foolishness of passing the buck when asking "what will our children do?" We can't agree on social issues now, how the hell will we agree when even more people are unable to contribute meaningfully?
Citation needed. Live music is a healthy economy, but I am not sure a majority of listeners of a given artist are particularly driven to go to that artist's concerts. I suspect only a passionate minority is interested.
Even at many restaurants today the person who's name is above the door as it where rarely touches the food. So as long as that person is the one who is responsible for designing the recipes and menus and plating what difference does it really make if the dish you are served was prepared by a robot or whatever line chef happened to be on duty that day?
Robot cleaners, maintenance, etc... I highly doubt we will have a fully automated robot loop that takes care of themselves anytime soon, so there's always going to be a need for humans in the chain.
A strong argument is made that the options for new jobs are rapidly diminishing, as automation eliminates jobs by skill level, while at the same time the economy is not giving people time to retrain (people most imperilled by automation are usually those living paycheck-to-paycheck). Those two things were not simultaneously true in the past.
There will always be something to transition to. It's not because we cannot imagine it that it means there is nothing ahead of us. Like 75% of the jobs people have nowadays did not exist 100 years ago, and nobody at that time could have imagined them.
Sure, humans will go on (unless we nuke outselves), but that doesn’t mean it will be easy or fun to live through if we just presume it’ll all be fine.
I hear the stand-in-line-as-a-service industry is growing as well. Anyone with a lot of free time can get paid to stand in line. It’s great! Who wouldn’t want such a bright future?