The reason technology doesn't net destroy jobs is that things that destroy jobs lower costs, which leaves people with more money in their pockets, which creates

The reason technology doesn't net destroy jobs is that things that destroy jobs lower costs, which leaves people with more money in their pockets, which creates jobs. This is true so long as two other things are also true; - There needs to be something else for people to do instead. In the case of the industrial revolution power looms in factories replaced home weavers, but the factories were huge and could employ all the weavers and more. The factories created more jobs than they destroyed. In the case of AI that isn't immediately true, nor is it obvious that it's going to be true in the short term. So far we can only envisage the destruction of jobs. - Secondly, the lowering of costs only puts money in people's pockets if the very wealthy don't hoard it for themselves. There are trillions sitting around doing nothing for the economy according to leaks like the Panama Papers. AI could potentially just make those numbers a bit bigger while everyone else starves. In the long term I'm reasonably optimistic. I think society will organize around AI to let computers do things and we'll settle on an alternative model to 'time worked = money', whether that's something like UBI or artistic patronage or whatever really. I think that's 50 years away. We'll only get to that because in the short term it's going to be painful though.