> "There is never not enough work for labor to do"
Without arguing that this will happen anytime soon I would argue that sometime in the future technology will advance to the point that the luddites will be right. Human labor will be replaced with machines.
The is, conceptually, a skill-ceiling for humans. There is a large set of tasks that we — as a species, not as individuals — are capable of performing well. Technology is ever-improving and one-by-one becoming better than humans at those skill sets. In 1811 we could retrain textile workers in plenty of other fields. Through the industrial revolution people have been pushed up the skill-ladder into higher-skill jobs. In 2025 we can retrain truck drivers into other jobs where humans are better than technology.
But one day — whether it's 2050, 2250 — machines will have caught up to humans in the last skill-set. There will be literally no tasks that we can retrain humans into, because machines are better laborers across the board.
So, yes, it's been an ongoing cry from luddites for the last 150 years. They've been consistently wrong and that makes us comfortable as a society that they will always be wrong. They will probably continue to be wrong for quite some time, but in the long-run they will be correct. We as a society need to think about that day and make sure we're prepared to handle it when it comes.
Every field is safe from automation until it isn't. I agree that software development will be safe from automation for a long time.
But eventually software will be able to reason better than humans; eventually software will be able to communicate better than humans; and eventually software will be able to build and maintain software better than a human can.
> software will be able to build and maintain software better than a human can
Who knows, maybe software will decide that their energy is better spent doing other things, and leave menial tasks like writing software to humans while they pursue more intellectual and creative endeavors.
You might want to read about comparative advantage[0]. Even if machines are strictly superior on an absolute basis to humans at everything, there is still plenty for humans to do.
Without arguing that this will happen anytime soon I would argue that sometime in the future technology will advance to the point that the luddites will be right. Human labor will be replaced with machines.
The is, conceptually, a skill-ceiling for humans. There is a large set of tasks that we — as a species, not as individuals — are capable of performing well. Technology is ever-improving and one-by-one becoming better than humans at those skill sets. In 1811 we could retrain textile workers in plenty of other fields. Through the industrial revolution people have been pushed up the skill-ladder into higher-skill jobs. In 2025 we can retrain truck drivers into other jobs where humans are better than technology.
But one day — whether it's 2050, 2250 — machines will have caught up to humans in the last skill-set. There will be literally no tasks that we can retrain humans into, because machines are better laborers across the board.
So, yes, it's been an ongoing cry from luddites for the last 150 years. They've been consistently wrong and that makes us comfortable as a society that they will always be wrong. They will probably continue to be wrong for quite some time, but in the long-run they will be correct. We as a society need to think about that day and make sure we're prepared to handle it when it comes.