> The day when there are machines smart enough to do all the service jobs that humans currently do will be the day machines are smart enough not to work for fre

> The day when there are machines smart enough to do all the service jobs that humans currently do will be the day machines are smart enough not to work for free. The self-checkout at my supermarket is smart enough to demand pay? Wow, I didn't know that. Actually, you could quite easily automate an entire store with robotics that haven't been state-of-the-art in years. The main issue is up-front capital, not scaring people, and having one person in the shop to deal with complaints/loss prevention. It'd be even easier for McDonald's - picking things out of crates, going through pre-set steps to cook them, and packaging them, isn't exactly very hard. You could have one human for quality control if you really wanted. So, retail as a sector will, at the same time as growing, employ fewer and fewer people. I'm sure you can pick out examples of existing technology that's not very hard to apply to most sectors, aside from capital concerns.