[mikedmiked]

We are at a stage now where its becoming easier to automate medium difficulty tasks (things like general office paper work - the lower-end white collar jobs) but we cant automate some 'easier' 'blue-collar' things like cleaning toilets and laying roof tiles - as its cheaper to get a low-class worker to do it than create a robot.

The middle class are the ones who are going to feel the heat over the next century. The smartest humans will not need to worry until a true singularity begins, really.

[eli_gottlieb]

That depends what you mean by "smartest". The lower levels of law work, once occupied by paralegals and young lawyers, are already becoming subject to automation. Medical diagnosis, too.

The expensive, expert professions are precisely where there's the most economic incentive to automate as much as you can.

[true_religion]

Paralegals and young lawyers are firmly in the middle class, aren't they?

I think rather than 'smartest' its better to say people at the top of their field, if that field requires substantial intellectual activity.

[eli_gottlieb]

But do you mean top of the field in terms of best employee at their rank or at the top of their workplace's hierarchy of ranks?

[true_religion]

Top of their field as in the broad industry wide-categorization.

For example, not the best bricklayer but the most productive (profit for business produced per hour of employee work) construction worker.

That probably isn't a bricklayer but maybe the inspector or the general foreman.