[wvenable]

> but ultimately if more jobs are created than are lost

For people who believe more jobs are created, it seems like they rely in chaos theory or something. They can't see how or where these new jobs will be created or how automation leads to it. We automated physical labour so we increased intellectual labour. Now are automating intellectual labour too so what's being increased now?

[chucke1992]

amount of people who can do stuff that is considered "intellectual"?

It is not different from happened with guns - with introduction of guns, military has grown bigger not smaller - in comparison to knight era.

Now you will have more people who will be able to produce art, write music, songs, develop games, write stories and so on. People will be able to produce scenes without months or years of learning how to use photoshop, after effects and co. We now have more painters than in da vinci era and we have more musicians than in bach era.

Same with software engineering - ability to do stuff easier will produce more people doing that. Not less. We do not code to the metal much anymore - most of the software engineers do not use assembly anymore and higher level languages simplified stuff that required hard learning in the past - yet the amount of developers is more than ever.

[wvenable]

Software development is a bit of an exception because we have, probably by a whole order of magnitude, too few developers for the world.

However, what about all other things that are intellectual? Accountants, word processors, assistants, etc? We need fewer of those people than ever before.

As for the effect on art, the greater the unskilled people who can produce art the less it's worth. AI will eventually drive the value of art to zero. Even now 99.99999% of skilled musicians are unable to make a living doing it.