Who do you think will be answering these questions in a future in which these AI companies visions become a reality? Because they already have a huge influence on society and that will only increase as the tech improves.

The most optimistic answer I can think of is that they will eventually agree to share their wealth under credible threats of violent revolution. That's the most optimistic outcome I see, they concede to threats of violence rather than needing actual violence.

These are the right questions to ask. I think about stuff like this often, and just as often people I discuss this with think I'm off my rocker. I, on the other hand, think some can't see past what they have been programmed to see. It's sad really, our lives are finite and much is wasted on a less than optimal layout.

I'd answer: No, we should not have to work to eat, they should not be mandatory, and no not everyone has to work.

But those problems need solved first before completely upending the current system. The system does need changed, but that change must happen before mass unemployment, not after the fact.

How much do you trust the current US administration to guide us into a future where no one needs a job in order to get health care, food, shelter, etc?

Maybe figure out the answers to that before forcing everyone into an economy where they still need to work to make money, but any worthwhile jobs have been automated away.

The other question, of course, is what happens to the political power of the newly disposable?

No, but what are the odds of the robust welfare state that would be required to actually enable some sort of post-work society taking shape here in America? I'd truly like to be optimistic but, politically we have been moving in the opposite direction ever since the end of the New Deal, and the oligarchs who control the technologies are not exactly benevolent.

No. But capitalism requires them. I'm down to end capitalism, but maybe we should figure that out before we destroy the thing that kinda-sorta made it work?