While previous waves of mechanisation caused huge social upheaval (first chucking people off the land into factories and then out of factories into other work) They still left the need for the masses to be employed – this current wave of automation will do away with the need for any large workforce. There will not be enough employment just building drones and robots to employ everybody. Those robots will replace huge swathes of people and be far more efficient and productive. A whole mass of people will have no gainful employment.
We either address this or just blame the people who have been chucked on the scrapheap.
I would suggest:
a. A three day week
b. Retraining into caring and support industries – teaching, nursing, social care, counselling, etc.
c. Retraining into improved leisure activities
d. Restructuring of taxation system to provide for a more equal society.
I’m afraid the present work ethic went out with the dinosaurs. This is the threshold of a new world. We either accommodate it and create a fair society in which all people profit from the automation bonanza or we get a divided society of billionaires and paupers and huge social unrest.