"Our only salvation seems, at least for now, to expand ourselves in creative professions that cannot be performed by machines (yet)."
Yes. We have to move "up-market" in the job market, just like the disruptive innovation theory says. But this will also create many more opportunities for us. Automation of work is not new. And in the few last decades that we've used it intensively, it has only led to the growth of country economies and to a more advanced society, with more opportunities for non-physical work.
Now, what happens when robots become "smarter" than us at everything we can do and can think for themselves? That's harder to predict right now. But it doesn't necessarily mean we'll become their slaves. We might still use them as our "tools", or worst case scenario we'll literally merge with technology to keep pace with them, but I don't think that will happen until nano-technology is mature enough (http://www.nanofuture2030.com is an interesting blog on this).
In a way we're already starting to merge with technology, just not physically yet. If we watch the trends in computing since the birth of the mainframe, computers have become ever more "mobile", smaller and more "personal", from Mainframe > Mini-computer > PC > Notebook > Smartphone.
Whatever the next big computing paradigm will be, I know that "device" will be more mobile, smaller and more intimate with the human being.
>Yes. We have to move "up-market" in the job market, just like the disruptive innovation theory says
You seem to have a lot of faith in the average person's ability to move "up market". Personally I don't see this becoming a reality. Furthermore, the creative and knowledge jobs needed are orders of magnitude fewer than manual jobs to provide for the same amount of production in society. The welfare state will have to become the norm and getting to that point will require major social upheaval.
I didn't say we have a choice. It is what it is. We could try to slow it down by not embracing it and making laws against it, but unless the whole planet agrees on this, then it's pointless and will only end up making the country that writes such laws to fall behind the others.
But I have faith in humanity's ability to adapt. It's not that hard to learn a new job. And I think automation throughout the society helps everyone's job become easier.
The way I see tools are becoming easier and easier, and the barrier to entry is lowered so more people can create websites, or do marketing, and so on.
>I think automation throughout the society helps everyone's job become easier.
I don't think your considering the situation where the tools can do the job completely. The major difference now between past production revolutions was that the limiting factor was still human labor. The tools made the jobs vastly easier, but it still required a human operator. When you can take the human operator out of the equation completely, you're on entirely new ground.
>the barrier to entry is lowered so more people can create websites, or do marketing
These are all jobs that depend on orders of magnitude larger industries to survive (marketers need a thriving economy to create added value to justify their cost).
It seems like we're doing the same thing the finance industry did with the housing market: past history showed that housing prices always go up, so we'll assume they'll keep finding a way to go up. This completely ignores the fact that this time is vastly different than past situations. There has to be some upper limit here. If we want to assume we'll just keep going up and up (the knowledge work ladder), you need an argument that explains why there is effectively no upper limit.
Yes. We have to move "up-market" in the job market, just like the disruptive innovation theory says. But this will also create many more opportunities for us. Automation of work is not new. And in the few last decades that we've used it intensively, it has only led to the growth of country economies and to a more advanced society, with more opportunities for non-physical work.
Now, what happens when robots become "smarter" than us at everything we can do and can think for themselves? That's harder to predict right now. But it doesn't necessarily mean we'll become their slaves. We might still use them as our "tools", or worst case scenario we'll literally merge with technology to keep pace with them, but I don't think that will happen until nano-technology is mature enough (http://www.nanofuture2030.com is an interesting blog on this).
In a way we're already starting to merge with technology, just not physically yet. If we watch the trends in computing since the birth of the mainframe, computers have become ever more "mobile", smaller and more "personal", from Mainframe > Mini-computer > PC > Notebook > Smartphone.
Whatever the next big computing paradigm will be, I know that "device" will be more mobile, smaller and more intimate with the human being.