Automation en masse of low skilled labour is going to present an absolutely huge challenge to society.

I cannot see how low-skilled jobs such as:

- driving jobs (taxis, haulage, etc)

- store work (stacking shelves, stock ordering, cashing out purchases, solving basic customer queries such as where in the store is product X, etc.)

- retail banking

- fast food or convenience store services

- etc.

will not be replaced by automation in the next decade or so.

We're already seeing it as self-driving vehicles are rapidly developing, stock picking bots at Amazon and similar are coming along rapidly, self-service checkouts at stores are becoming very much mainstream and highly used, online banking and ATM machines offering a wider range of services, etc.

Those jobs listed above represent an enormous amount of employment throughout the western world as it is. If we accept that not everyone can do every type of job, that IQ does separate people in their abilities to do or even learn to do a job, etc. then that means we will see mass displacement of the workforce when the only jobs available to many are one's that are out of their educational or intellectual reach.

This is just the beginning, by the way, as AI and automation gets better then the skills and jobs it can replace will grow and increasingly sap up jobs requiring higher levels of intellect or education. So while low-skilled job replacement is the primary short-term challenge, overall job replacement is a medium-longer term challenge.

This challenge has been on my mind quite a lot recently, as have the challenges posed by the development of AGI/AI which are pretty well linked, although AGI has its own challenges in terms of what it might mean for humanity as a whole.

If we accept the above then we accept that not just large scale unemployment, but large scale human redundancy, is inevitable then we have very large questions to ask, and thus very large answers or solutions to provide, regarding how we structure society.

If the low skilled jobs are the first to go, which are tended to by people of lower IQ / intellect or who aren't strong academically, then not only will we have large scale unemployment/human redundancy but I believe it would be coupled with comparatively low entrepreneurship. That's not to say that people of lower intellect can't be entrepreneurs, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to find easy problems to solve and will only become more so. It would also be significantly more difficult for such people to, for example, open a franchise of a chain due to the financial and experience backgrounds levied by most franchise owners.

The conclusion I've come to is that socialism is inevitable in the medium-long term whereby the machines do the work and the ownership/profits of the methods of production are shared by everyone.

I'm not a proponent of socialism, I will say, but I've come to the conclusion that it's inevitable given the technologies and changes that are coming our way.

On solutions:

- Without changing the ownership of that which produces, a basic living income for all would come at a very high cost to those who still have jobs in the form of higher taxes.

- If the current situation remains, whereby few people control the vast bulk of the production in the economy, and large scale unemployment comes around, even with a basic living income we will see unparalleled inequality. Even if ALL jobs were replaced by machines, if the ownership of these machines and the decisions regarding their profit remains in the hands of few, there will not only be unparalleled inequality but a system of inequality more sustainable than ever before.

- Regardless of how a solution is implemented, it will be gradual as automation takes time to take up increasingly more intelligent work, which will place an enormous burden on those intelligent enough to do the work. It will inherently become even more less unequal, as those who "cannot" do the work will not work but would be supported by those who can, those who can will do so and pay large taxes while doing so, and those who own that which produces can further relax.

- We live in a society that is increasingly "no man left behind" in terms of resources. The obvious solution to an issue whereby society shifts toward more intelligent work and automation of less skilled work would be to produce more intelligent babies.

-- Eugenics will never be looked upon kindly, so the only other solution is to make embryonic selection for intelligence en vogue.

-- Despite grand increases in intelligence and knowledge, many of the population are still highly religious. I don't believe this will fare well for embryonic selection in the short term.

-- Therefore in the short term we would see more of what we currently see - higher reproduction rates in the unemployed or those doing low skilled work, increasingly lower rates amongst those in higher skilled work as having a child becomes even more expensive/stressful due to higher taxes.

-- This makes all the above challenges even more difficult than they already are.

So the solution lies in something like:

- Changing the ownership of production

- Putting in place support systems to support the lives of those whose jobs are replaced and who have not the skills or intelligence to take higher skilled work

- Putting in place support systems to enable those in higher skilled work/higher education/etc. to have as many children as they want. Free childcare for working parents is one of the most important parts of that.

- Increasing emphasis on education for all. Make it available to all for the same cost and make the various colleges entrance based on merit alone.

- Continue developing and finding a way to make embryonic selection for intelligence popular and accepted.

There are large barriers to the above, namely ourselves in our reluctance to put more funding into social/educational/etc. programs, and the elite who control that which produces certainly not wanting to give up their position any time soon.

I'm interested in people's thoughts on this. It seems to be something that is largely ignored but yet appears to be staring us down head on as something that will happen and will begin happening soon.