>A large percentage of workers are not going to have much to offer, economically, and I'm not sure where we go from there.

I wonder about this all the time. My primary interest is in fields like Computer Vision, with an ultimate goal of contributing to the self driving car scene. As excited as I am by that and want to see that future as a reality, there's a side of me that wonders what the workforce will do as automated system continue their steady march forward. Once we 'automate away' driving, things like truck drivers (of which there are 3.5 million) will be a thing of the past, probably cabs too given enough time.

Where do they go?

They go home to their robo-housing condo, eat meat grown on sheets in massive labs run by robo-farmers, and any supplies they need are transported by robo-truckers. When they get sick, they just go to the robo-hospital.

All these things are completely free and not staffed by any humans... because the billionaires who live in cities in the sky feel guilty about the pathetic insignificant lives of the idiot masses below. So we give them the necessities they need, and poison their food so they don't procreate too much.

You just conjured up imagery of the Pangu and Tai Yong Medical from Deus Ex: Human Revolution in my mind. Lower Hengsha is indeed a place I would rather not live :) I think more people could do with reading, watching, and playing dystopic sci-fi media. Keeps everyone cognizant of the fact that technological advancement isn't an inherently good thing.

Instead of self-driving cars, please instead use your computer vision to automate an entire food production line. Then we can move to a roughly post-scarcity society where only a minimal base-line of work is necessary to give people comfortable lives :)