All these things I've predicted will happen because... because they'll just happen, okay‽
We're already seeing this shit happen. The only restriction right now is they can't realspace interface very well. Once that hurdle is overcome it's going to get real fucking weird out there.
To wit, lets take just one example. Driving.
Truck driving and the like is a huge source of jobs. Be it CDL licenses, bus drivers, taxi drivers, uber shits, boats, planes...
Once self driving cars are fully realized, and that's a when not an if and it's probably going to be considered a solved, complete tech in the next year or two... Why would insurance companies allow human drivers on the road? Or interstates? Wouldn't it be far safer for everyone if that was restricted to self-driving cars and self-driving busses? The biggest hurdle right now with self-driving cars is already the human element. Remove that and everything improves for everyone.
Unless you like being able to travel without permission.
They'll do it economically at first. Cars will be made more expensive and less appealing to drive. Insuring them will become increasingly difficult to do, more expensive. You'll get a discount if your car is self driving capable, or has an AI assistant. Then you'll get a discount if you allow the AI to have emergency override mode, like in an emergency if you let the car park itself. Or agree to let it handle the boring parts, like the interstate, or going down main street, or parking. And that discount -- incentive -- will be leveraged more and more, until you don't have a choice.
Then you simply won't be able to get a non-self driving car. And won't be able to turn off the parts. And then the idea of owning a car yourself will be a weird, quaint thing -- instead you'll subscribe to some Uber-like service, perhaps ran by your city (my kinfolk in Idaho's city had to do mass transit and just set up an uber clone instead of busses, for example. In 10 years that'll be ran by AI). Or they'll just do self-driving busses and vans instead of cars to deal with transit.
Try and get a non-smart TV now. It's not happening. If they want to push you via economic means to embrace tech or a cultural change, they can. They will.
Eventually you'll see self-driving or augmented-operating forklifts. Then it'll be drones instead. And sooner, far sooner than we think, they'll figure out human form drones. And you'll be walking through your grocery store and see some robot stocking shelves for $0.00 an hour. That's a job some human could have done, but it's cheaper to have the robot do it. Never complains, never unionizes, never has to be paid. And they can scale that up infinitely. 5, 10 of them. The only cost is power and spare parts.
This isn't a prediction, it's an observation. We're entering the age of thinking machines. The "boring shit" is going to be done by robots. Hope you're interesting enough to justify feeding in the new paradigm.
