People say automation will kill many jobs, but often forget that when that day comes, we'll also be much more empowered.
Now we can use neural nets and all sorts of mechatronics to create our own automation and bots. Software's free and hardware is cheap. What will so many people with so much free time on their hands, and with needs that are unfulfilled, do?
Imho that hardware part really depends on scale.
As nice as the thought might be, I doubt there are enough resources on Earth for a future where 8 billion people live a leisurely first world lifestyle in their smart homes with IT gadgets all around them, while robots take care of all the manual labor that needs to be done.
All that hardware requires resources and those resources are finite, at least on that little piece of rock we like to call Earth. As of right now that's pretty much the current ceiling for humanities progress and it ain't a very high one.
Now we can use neural nets and all sorts of mechatronics to create our own automation and bots. Software's free and hardware is cheap. What will so many people with so much free time on their hands, and with needs that are unfulfilled, do?