[Hawramani]

Building on Donald Knuth's definition of an artist (someone who does work that cannot yet be automated, such as a programmer), it seems like today the most efficient economy is one that automates everything that can be automated, so that all of its population work as artists.

The argument that automation destroys jobs assumes that at least part of the population does not have the propensity to be artists. This is the crucial point that this whole debate rests on.

In other words, are there people who are so un-creative that everything they could produce can be automated? If there are, then such people will lose jobs due to automation and will not gain back any alternative jobs.

I think on a site like HN the debate is skewed because most of us are high IQ people who, so far, don't have any trouble competing with robots. If there were robots who could do everything I can do and do it cheaper than I, why would anybody hire me?

[protagonist_h]

The question here is -- which jobs will remain longest. Is that "high IQ" jobs? Computers are wonderful at solving well-defined "high IQ" problems, like playing chess or performing register allocation. And creativity is just an ability to generate original solutions to the problem. Computers are more than capable of doing that.

[ScottBurson]

I think you've hit the nail on the head.

We're getting to where it's all about creativity.