The history of the last 250 was moving from agriculture to industrial work to service work. Now the last frontier is starting to be overtaken by automation too.

(And in all of those transitions millions where left behind without work or with very worse prospects. The people that took the new jobs were often a different group, not people who knew the old jobs and were already in their 30s and 40s).

And what would be the new professions that uniquely require humans, when even thinking and creative jobs are eaten by AI? Would there be a boom of demand for dancers and chefs, especially as millions lose their service jobs?

Given some sort of machine with human capabilities, there would be no reason to assign that profession to a human, excepting perhaps cost.

Like doordashing and pokemon card reselling.

> The history of the last 250 years is inventing new professions as old ones are automated away.

Even if this still holds true ("past performance is no guarantee of future results") the part about it that people handwave away without thinking about or addressing is how awful the transitional period can be.

The industrial revolution worked out well for the human labor force in the long term, but there were multiple generations of people who suffered through a horrendous transition (one that was only alleviated by the rise of a strong labor movement that may not be replicable in the age of AI, given how it is likely to shift the leverage of labor vs. capital).

If you want to lean on history as an indication that massive sudden productivity changes will make things better for humanity in the long run, then fine, but then you have to acknowledge that (based on that same history) the transition could still be absolutely chaotic and awful for the lifespan of anyone who is currently alive.