Every time this happens throughout history (and I mean going all the way back way past industrial revolution, to dawn of agriculture, to the earliest documented history, to the mitochondria, to the earliest stars exploding...) the result of a better way to get work done is more complexity and more diversity in work done (processes for increasing entropy).
The author said not to confuse laws of nature with observations of history, and I take issue with the implication. My perspective is grounded deep in physics, chemistry, biology and anthropology and after spending 10 years fretting over what AI would do to our civilization this decade I am not worried about labor displacement.
What I am worried about is power struggles and brainwashing.
I'm pretty sure this is incomplete.
It's more like whether people find the work rewarding enough to be worth doing.
In some cases it can be rewarding for reasons other than money. Even when the primary reward is money, there could be a lot of demand for human work that is worse than AI when the AI is significantly more expensive. Some customers may just prefer the human do it for any number of reasons.
It's very possible we can have a rich prosperous economy and culture with lots of AI and people working together. It's just not clear how we get there, and its not popular to take the idea seriously right now. Fear propagates faster and easier than inspiration, at least in this cultural climate.
We're less likely to get what we want if we don't aim for it.
Sorry, bad phrasing!
They were put to work in new roles enabled by technological advancements: wielding mass manufactured rifles and operating artillery.
This has played out over and over throughout history whenever a large fraction of the population suddenly becomes surplus to requirements.
They never get to enjoy utopia. They are expended in warfare or low value forced labour until the labour pool once again matches the requirements.
I'm super happy about this idilic AI future my great grandchildren will enjoy...
