No, it's basically a tautology based on continual technological progression. Imagine if we could build a robot that was exactly equivalent to a human. If it ran

No, it's basically a tautology based on continual technological progression. Imagine if we could build a robot that was exactly equivalent to a human. If it ran on less energy than a human, then basically no human would be needed for any task. Now imagine a continuum of less sophisticated robots that excel in certain tasks beyond what certain humans can do. Another example I like http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2010/08/08/unemployed-21st-century-draft-horse/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2010/08/08/unemployed-21s... there was a type of employee at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution whose job and livelihood largely vanished in the early twentieth century. This was the horse. The population of working horses actually peaked in England long after the Industrial Revolution, in 1901, when 3.25 million were at work. Though they had been replaced by rail for long-distance haulage and by steam engines for driving machinery, they still plowed fields, hauled wagons and carriages short distances, pulled boats on the canals, toiled in the pits, and carried armies into battle. But the arrival of the internal combustion engine in the late nineteenth century rapidly displaced these workers, so that by 1924 there were fewer than two million. There was always a wage at which all these horses could have remained employed. But that wage was so low that it did not pay for their feed. The arguments people make against this are that humans aren't horses. Humans can learn and adapt much better. But they can't do that infinitely, and some will reach their limits faster than others.