Not seeing the big picture...
As humans spread and multiply, the logistics needed to manage, feed and educate us become more and more complex.
Where in the 70s we dreamed of AI machines and robotics that could do a single humans job, we rapidly discovered the gap between our dreams and the reality. In fact, its very hard to make a machine that can replace a human even now. What happened was this:
Instead of building multi-purpose machines capable of doing all off a human's work, we have built a layer of technology that buffers us from the hard work we used to do. We have a device for opening stuff, another for communicating, another for lifting and moving things and so on. The AI needed to do these tasks has since caught up pretty radically, but we have not.
So when you look at the big picture, humans have become a large, partially-skilled workforce pool, and the computers we created to replace us have become better at managing us than we are.
One thing a manager has to be is better at his worker's jobs than they, so he can teach them AND give them a goal (to replace him eventually), but the computer boss puts a big block in that.
If this happens the way it is looking like, its going to be bad. We will become a classed race again, as the company bosses - who own the computers - will be isolated from the workforce much like it is in large corporations, and its a bad model. Poor workers with little say over their lot being controlled by faceless electronics that are programmed to coerce them into their day, making a ****load of money for the owners of said companies, who are now sitting on a load of spare cash released by the firing of middle management.
So is any of that going to filter down to the workforce? Doubtful.
I'm glad I'm self-employed!
