> The problem is that people still need something to do that gives some meaning to their existence and provides accomplishment, intrinsically and within their p

> The problem is that people still need something to do that gives some meaning to their existence and provides accomplishment, intrinsically and within their peer group. Parenting. > There's art, but if ever fifth person is an artist, who is supposed to consume all of it? Don't forget charity work, nursing, education - i don't think any of these will replaced by machines soon. > Many are also not wired to be scientists. See above. How about explorers? Sports enthusiasts. > With machine learning steadily becoming helpful in more domains and slow but steady improvements in robotics, we could be just 50-100 years away from a future where most manual labor of today becomes redundant. It happened before : see farming. We found other things to do :) > Of course that assumes continued progress, and as history shows that is not at all a given. All we'd need is a serious global conflict with nuclear weapons and progress could be stalled for a long time. Massive progress is made during times of need. WW1 and WW2 basically created aircraft, rockets and computers. The current pandemic is pushing medicine forward at a rate not seen in years.