This has always been my prediction.
Mid-20th century sci-fi and futurist-prediction was awash with futures where robots did lots of work and the middle class enjoyed a more leisure-oriented lifestyle of plenty. But that’s a pipe dream which doesn’t fit with the realities of our capitalist system.
As more work can be done by robots – robots owned by the corporations they work for – it heralds an era where huge swaths of the working class are relegated to poverty. Without some sort of Universal Income, mass robot workforces don’t mean more leisure, they mean more wealth concentrated in the hands of the most powerful.
