You've hit the nail on the head. Some jobs come from unnecessary complexity in the system (civil servants, accounting people); some jobs exist because they're t

You've hit the nail on the head. Some jobs come from unnecessary complexity in the system (civil servants, accounting people); some jobs exist because they're too complicated for machines (for now); some are just plainly unneeded (stock brokers, hedge fund managers and the like). As AI and robotics advance, progressively more classes of workers will suddenly find themselves superfluous. What will they do then? My biggest fear is that most will simply fall into consumerist lullaby mode. I have no doubt big corporations will find a way to make non-labour-bound income work to their advantage. Rendering healthcare possible for everybody and -thing, up to planet scale, is certainly an enticing aspect of this labour revolution (these activities need humans and human intelligence, which are currently all locked up and undervalued in traditional jobs). It gives us time to think. For the first time in history, an entire civilization gets the opportunity to work on its intellect. See my other comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13042772 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13042772) in this thread. That all these jobs don't pay just shows how ill-equipped our current system is to handle free-thinking people, and freedom as a concept.