Self-driving trucks will be job-killers.

[Humanist_Activist]

111. It could be a golden opportunity rather than something to fear, but only if governments, culture...

and the economy catch up.

Not to mention the pace of adoption, it could be slow, and hence will allow us to be have enough time to prevent large scale employment disruptions. Eventually though, I don't see how we can avoid adopting some type of policy for government provided minimum income. This will be a base level, hopefully based on localized cost of living estimates, for basic food, shelter, health care, etc.

If wide scale implementation of renewable energy continues to develop, with the pace increasing, then energy will be cheap and plentiful, this is important for the next steps.

A shift in culture will be needed to redefine work, we could possibly have a majority of the population that aren't able to work, not due to disability, but because robot labor is cheaper. Eventually we will have to change what it means to actually work, perhaps highly specialized micro-economies, that are highly localized. Hobbies become productive, in a sense, and the majority of people will participate in such activities, mostly because, by our nature, most humans aren't lazy.

If this is combined with highly automated economy and services with cheap and renewable energy, we could be face a truly post scarcity society, one that is more efficient at providing human services, where jobs are optional, and you could literally do whatever you want without fearing that you will be evicted from your home, or know where you next paycheck is coming from. There will still be income disparities, there will always be a market for hand crafted or highly creative works, think Etsy and local markets, hand grown food, etc. and like now, they will be luxuries or highly localized. The inventive and innovators will still make money, on top of the minimum income, etc.

It could be the beginning of worldwide paradise, but only IF, and it is a big if, our politicians have the foresight to rise up to the challenges of the future. I think, on a certain level, they are, at least on the Democratic/Democratic Socialist side, with Obama talking about free 2 year college, and Bernie Sanders talking about implementing free 4 year college. Those would be important first steps, along with some free retraining courses for the transition, to minimize unemployment in the short term.

To give an example, driverless cars could actually make transportation more accessible for a large number of people, especially in North America. Unfortunately, most of our cities are car-centric, and as a result, public transportation doesn't serve many places where people live or work. Driverless cars may alleviate some of these issues, in particular for the elderly and disabled, people who cannot drive cars. It could also help the poor in such areas as well, driverless cars will be more efficient and safer than human driven cars, and cheaper to operate as well. People who cannot or can only barely afford cars would benefit from not having to own one if overall costs of renting, as needed, the services of a driverless car is cheaper than maintaining insurance and maintenance on an owned vehicle.