"Long discussed, little acted on" is so true.
James P. Hogan brought these issues up in his 1982 sci-fi novel "Voyage from Yesteryear" (and others), talking about a "phase change" in human society caused by a combination of cheap fusion energy, automation, and, in general, improved know-how.
"Voyage from Yesteryear"
https://web.archive.org/web/20...
A physical example of a phase change is liquid water boiling into steam instead of just being hotter water -- where gaseous steam has very different properties, dynamics, and management needs than liquid water.
From an open letter I wrote to my Princeton classmate Michelle (Robinson) Obama in 2011:
https://pdfernhout.net/open-le...
"I've spent decades thinking about these issues since Princeton and Professor Steven Slaby's class on "The Technological Imperative of the Arms Race", where I developed the theme of "technology as an amplifier" (although it is also true that technology can be an brake too, so either wings or chains). Problems can grow exponentially, but so can solutions. There are technical solutions (even as there are also technical mazes). It comes down to finding the social energy to put good solutions that we already know about into place. ... Unfortunately, as you know, substantial improvements in policy sometimes require going against some very powerful interests that are driving this country off a cliff in their greed, fear, and ignorance. But, I guess, like dealing with mildew, that has been a perennial problems of the human social condition. Physical obesity is not pretty, but then neither is financial obesity."
Anyway, better late than never for Michelle's husband to start paying attention to trends that were apparent to some in the 1980s and earlier -- but which society collectively did not have the political will to address back then. It would be great if he could provide social leadership in addressing them now.
Other information collected by me on that theme:
https://pdfernhout.net/beyond-...
"This article explores the issue of a "Jobless Recovery" mainly from a heterodox economic perspective. It emphasizes the implications of ideas by Marshall Brain and others that improvements in robotics, automation, design, and voluntary social networks are fundamentally changing the structure of the economic landscape. It outlines towards the end four major alternatives to mainstream economic practice (a basic income, a gift economy, stronger local subsistence economies, and resource-based planning). These alternatives could be used in combination to address what, even as far back as 1964, has been described as a breaking "income-through-jobs link". This link between jobs and income is breaking because of the declining value of most paid human labor relative to capital investments in automation and better design. Or, as is now the case, the value of paid human labor like at some newspapers or universities is also declining relative to the output of voluntary social networks such as for digital content production (like represented by this document). It is suggested that we will need to fundamentally reevaluate our economic theories and practices to adjust to these new realities emerging from exponential trends in technology and society."
Lots more on my website related to all that. I also mention Michelle and her Princeton thesis theme of alienation from the mainstream in my 2008 "Post-Scarcity Princeton" polemic/memoir/memorial available there, mainly in these two sections:
https://pdfernhout.net/reading...
https://pdfernhout.net/reading...
tl;dr Ultimately the idea in my sig is the most important of everythign I have wrote: "The biggest challenge of the 21st century is the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity." We will never be able to deal in a healthy and effective way with the socioeconomic consequences of AI and other advanced technology until we broadly acknowledge the "phase change" we have been going through as a (global) society related to broad technological changes and think about the implications for many aspects of that society.