[chrischen]

Are you suggesting we create a set of menial jobs for the sole purpose of keeping the less capable busy because we're too lazy to put people to good use? Having useless people around doing useless jobs doesn't get rid of the primary issue that there are useless people that exist.

People are creative. They can always fill jobs that can't be automated yet since humans are extremely pliable and trainable.

Artificially impeding progress to engineer a class of people doing jobs that are completely unnecessary is the type of social engineering only the rich and privileged could possibly dream up.

[Jemmeh]

I am ALL for technical advancements. I LOVE that cashier work can be automated so no one has to do that boring job. But we also have to realize the economy is going to have to change to keep up with automation. With the industrial revolution we got a lot of physical jobs taken away, and we were okay because there was still mental work to do. But more and more of that mental work is being taken over by computers too. Where do humans fit in when there's no physical labor and only very little mental labor with the way the economy is currently set up? Eventually there will be barely any human work left.

We have to move to a post-scarcity style economy at some point if you want people to not be upset. That's where things like universal basic income or at least lower-hours work weeks come into play.