No one is feeling useful or valued working a double shift at Walmart in order to put food on the table.
Feeling useful and valued can come from other means such as caring for the elderly and doing volunteer work.
Majority of people work to simply survive because without it, they would end up homeless and hungry.
A specific part of GP’s comment keeps getting overlooked:
So the problem isn't robots, it's the structure of how we humans rely on jobs for income.
Nobody is saying robots should replace human connection and expression
Edit: tone
Sure, humans relying on jobs for income is a problem with transitions. But people finding purpose in jobs is a problem, too.
Right now how we get there is being "forced to' -- and indeed that's a bug. But if we transition to a future where it's pretty hard to find useful work, that's a problem, even if the basic needs for survival are still being met.
I haven't had to work for 25 years. But I've spent the vast majority of that time employed. Times when I've not had purposeful employment as an anchor in my life have been rough for me. (First 2-3 months feels great... then it stops feeling so great).
Just to be clear, are you saying the only life work that you can find fulfillment in is work that can be perfectly automated and handled by AI? Do you have an example of what you mean?
The technology proposes a source of labor for the elites so abundant that they will not need to trade their wealth with the eaters.
However much resources you consume, it will be too much to buy for your labor. You will be priced out of existence.
The evidence for this is all around us. As automation of manufacturing has brought former luxuries into reach for middle-class families, those with means move on to consuming items that require more and more labor to produce. "Handmade" scented soaps. "Artisanal" cheeses. Nobody with money wants their wedding invitation to arrive at a destination with machine-canceled postage. It's tacky. Too automated, too efficient. In fact, I bet the ultra-wealthy don't even use postal mail for delivering their invitations, because it's not labor-intensive enough to be tasteful. Private couriers are probably the move. You can see this pattern over and over again once you know what to look for.
There will always be a demand for human labor, because value is a human construction. That said, the rate at which the economy will change because of AI (if the True Believers are to be believed) is probably too fast for most workers to adapt, so you may not be entirely wrong in your conclusion depending on how thing shake out, but the way you got there is bogus imo.
just because humans can't "outdo" technology doesn't mean we should "blame" "the elite". that's literally how the great catastrophes of socialism, communism, Marxism, etc started
Humans aren't "forced" to do anything, (depending on how you look at it). You could just lay down, "live" in your own excrement until you starve to death. That seems reasonable! Liberate the proletariat! Why doesn't everyone else work for me?!