In the past, eliminating humans from one set of jobs has been balanced by a new set of opportunities for humans in different jobs. Usually, the new jobs are more valuable.
That's not utopianism. The new jobs can't always be filled by the people kicked out of jobs. It really sucks to be them.
But it does mean that it's not irrational for people to want to automate other people's jobs. The net amount of stuff generated increases, rather than decreases.
This pattern may not last forever. There's already some thought that we've generated more than enough stuff to guarantee a decent standard of living to everybody (at least in the developed world) without working, and plenty more for luxuries if people choose to work. Even if we haven't reached it, we appear to be heading in that direction sooner rather than later.
That may cause a radical re-think at some point. And it won't be seriously delayed by making sure cartoonists have jobs.
Jobs are plentiful as long as wealth is well distributed.
In the past, fast automation has led to badly distributed wealth, and job loss. This situation has lasted until the unemployable people died off (yep, that was part of it), and enough wealth was redistributed through violent means.
Today we know better, and have really no reason to repeat the violent means of our previous revolutions. But it's really looking like the people in power want to repeat them.
> enough wealth was redistributed through violent means.
there were no instances of violent redistribution of wealth that ended better for the average person than before. Only that a different group of people ended up with wealth.
Automation makes stuff cheaper, even for people who didn't obtain any of the financial wealth via redistribution - because there's more than just financial wealth that get created with automation. New availability of services and goods (think internet of today - this is a wealth that couldn't have existed before, and one can benefit from it even if they are poor today).
> enough stuff to guarantee a decent standard of living to everybody
It's not a zero sum game. There's still growth in us. We'll go to space and expand 1000x more, the space has plenty of resources, and humans will have jobs working together with AI.
We'll have to automate childcare to make that happen. Otherwise, the birthrates of the rest of the world will follow the countries with the highest standards of living on a wild plunge into unsustainability.
That's not utopianism. The new jobs can't always be filled by the people kicked out of jobs. It really sucks to be them.
But it does mean that it's not irrational for people to want to automate other people's jobs. The net amount of stuff generated increases, rather than decreases.
This pattern may not last forever. There's already some thought that we've generated more than enough stuff to guarantee a decent standard of living to everybody (at least in the developed world) without working, and plenty more for luxuries if people choose to work. Even if we haven't reached it, we appear to be heading in that direction sooner rather than later.
That may cause a radical re-think at some point. And it won't be seriously delayed by making sure cartoonists have jobs.