I truly think that at some point (far) in the future, robots will put everyone out of "real" work. They'll do everything for us. Money and economics will become irrelevant. Humans will be left to do what we enjoy at will, whether it's spending time with friends and family, exercising, playing music, painting, building things, or all of the above, of course. Some might even take it upon themselves to improve whatever systems are in place, if that's what they enjoy doing. The main obstacle we face, however, is getting everyone on the same page and making the transition from an economy dependent on cash flow to one that is automated where no one has any real responsibilities. I know it's hard to imagine right now, and we can presently think of a million ways why it will never happen; but it's just my opinion: where there's a will there's a way, and for something like this we have to really think outside the box.
I agree with most of what you are saying, I have similar beliefs.
I think that we need to redesign society from a technological and _primatological_ standpoint because I think a lot of the extreme hierarchy and brutality we see in our world is a result of the way that our cultural frameworks handle our primitive needs such as various ways that men compete for sexual success (such as resource acquisition).
The thing that I think people are missing as a realistic concern or change is that by the time these robots are able to replace most human jobs, which doesn't seem like it will be too many decades from now, shortly after that, we have to expect that the robots will become even more capable than humans.
The robots will be smarter than people. Normal, unaltered humans will probably eventually be treated like animals. I think that people don't take this possibility seriously (to me it is a likelihood, and probably within my lifetime).
I don't think that means we should prevent the next 'species' from taking over, but I do think it means we need to plan for ways that we can integrate with super-intelligent technology in order to stay relevant. And I think that is going to be a very practical issue within a small number of decades.
In order for "robots" to completely "take over" the transition will have to be MUCH longer than just one lifetime. Otherwise we'll end up with 40% unemployment and mass rioting.
It'll probably take us 50 years to have emission-free vehicles dominating the auto market, let alone robot overlords.
Maybe I'm just pessimistic (or optimistic), but I think Humans are too dumb and/or too smart to create an AI that will overthrow us. More likely, we'll ruin our society by overpopulating and draining our natural resources before we can prepare a suitable "Earth 2".
It isn't safe in the absolute sense, but it is the safest: as soon as AIs can program, they can automate whatever else is left themselves, probably fairly quickly.
This is not necessarily the case. Humans are machines that can do programming. And yet there are many many tasks for which we are unable to design machines to automate. Technology takes time to progress, AI or no AI.
That said, strong AI is so difficult, and we are so far away from it, that it is likely that by the time it happens we will have automated everything else already.
I actually think social work will be the safest job. In a world filled with robots, people will want to talk to real people :)
