Horses used to be used for practically everything. The first commercial steam engine pumped water from mines and was measured in "horsepower", the the rate at which a horse could continuously pump water. Then steam engines replaced freight hauling. Then personal transport. Don't see many working horses now.

Don't see many horses at all. That is, the offspring of those working horses certainly doesn't roam about in pastures, to pursue happiness because there are no jobs that require them.

I've read here that the obsolete horses helped bootstrap the pet food industry...

That was not something I needed to know.

In Pursuit of Honor (1995)

> The movie follows the plight of the officers as they attempt to save the animals that the Army no longer needs as it modernizes toward a mechanized military.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113399/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Pursuit_of_Honor

Are you implying that human population could ultimately decline, because of AI and automation ? If so, why is that undesirable.

Some believe that a human life has intrinsic value, even outside the value of the species as a whole and even outside the value of that human's labour.

True, but some believe that population growth has to stabilise at some point.

It is stabilizing already, natality in developing countries dropped much faster than what was expected.

A solution is providing the option of mid-life education.

Of course this comes more easily to places with free education.

What about if there are a group of people who cannot do mid-to-high skilled jobs (whilst potentially controversial, I think this is accurate)?

If we replace all of those jobs what do they do?

I have always thought there is a far-future dystopian story in that somewhere; society has evolved IT and automation to the extent that only the top 25% of individuals actually "work" and everyone else has leisure. The 25% decide they want a leisurely life also, causing the collapse of society...

Even if there is such a group of people, unable to learn a new trade, surely they're not the majority. So there is lots of room for improving the situation.

There are lots of stories of American coal miners going into tech when the mining jobs dried up. But their process of getting there is through charitable organizations, not a proper educational program.

There are vested interests in promoting those sorts of stories, as a counterpoint to the depressing reality that far more drop out of the economy onto the disability rolls and slowly or quickly drink and drug themselves to death.

Coal mining was (and is) tech, so it shouldn't be a surprise that some workers can move into another area of engineering.

The 75% should only be provided with little more than bare essentials. An apartment, food, and health care, with a small allowance for niceties.

The 25% that actually work should be rewarded with luxuries. Financial means to travel, own their own house, drive a nice car, etc.

Who do the 25% sell all their custom salads to? Automation is great at producing consumer goods not so much at producing luxury goods. One would think that the problem of not enough consumers to buy the stuff automation produces would be a self limiting mechanism. A UBI doesnt really address the problem either because it is essentially just taking money from those that own the automation equipment and giving it to those that don't so they can turn around and buy stuff from the automation equipment :/

But human life is dynamic. The most productive and innovative contributors start out as drooling infants and up as feeble elders. Society has to support more than high earners and their favorites.

Certainly. And we'll support the drooling infants and feeble elders.

And we'd also provide the opportunities for people to learn what is necessary to move from the 75% to the 25%.

and available careers, not just jobs.

Another question: How will they pay for that retraining; will the high skill jobs really pay enough to cover 2-4 years of schooling debt?

And that's another one - will that high skill job exist after 2-4 years of retraining?