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Or the buggywhip manufacturer?

It's easy to see the jobs that go away, but harder to see what will replace it. There are almost NO operators any longer, yet telecommunications didn't implode in the 1990s, it EXPLODED with millions of jobs being created as the technology advanced. Yes, there are only a handful of operators left, but there are all the jobs created thanks to wireless technology, including the manufacture of tablets, laptops, desktops, printers, cellphones, smart-phones, and all the support and repair staff for the installation, support, and maintenance of said devices.

There will be more robots, but there will be people to design better robots, maintain them, supplement the places where they cannot work, et cetera. Let's not forget that the jobs being replaced first are dangerous and pay well because your chance of getting killed is pretty dang good. I gave up my CDL for a programmer's desk years ago, and I'm not going to get killed in traffic while coding.

Secretaries are a thing of the past, but have been replaced by the Administrative assistant, who is paid much more than the old secretary. Technology has been eliminating, but replacing jobs since the invention of the wheel. It's not about thinking of how many jobs no longer exist, but how many are created. Would you want to go back to the days before bulldozers were created and employ men to break their backs with shovels all day?

artificial intelligence and computer robots will not take over the world i gamble on biotechnology and people a world in which people live far beyond their natural lifespans.

I think it's honestly a fair question to ask for what is the 4th Industrial Revolution. Seeing statistics recently saying that the richest 62 people own as much wealth as the bottom 50% of the world's population is staggering and it's trending in 20-30 years towards 1 or 2 people having this wealth. There is a danger that globalisation and technology advances drive this or facilitate it.
We need a fairer and more equal society for it to survive - with or without robots. Having said that, I'm someone who is in favour of small state and low taxes! So, what to do?
I didn't start answering this blog with the intention of saying this but I am a Christian and I truly believe that the only way for society to survive, at least survive well, is when each of our hard hearts are cracked-open by the love of Jesus. I'm sure not everyone will agree with that but it's my answer!

Someone said that "artificial intelligence won't ever be a match for natural stupidity", and at least for the time being that still appears to be very true. Thus even assuming that the technological gadgets take over *all* the jobs that don't require critical or constructive thinking, reasonably enough humans who can do that shouldn't really fear unemployment.

But this is just a small fraction of the problem: what will happen to the others? Will the technological growth lead to the extinction of those people whose jobs have little or nothing in common with their ability to think, or should they rather get acquainted with the notion that learning to use their minds is the only way to survive? And will the new social structure have an use for so many thinkers?
Unfortunately there's no satisfactory answer to those disturbing questions as there are too many unpredictable factors to provide any answers not based entirely on faith.

However the questions above might as well be purely academic: our culture is no more just a tiny spot on the Petri dish, it has covered nearly all the available surface. Running out of inhabitable space and resources as we are, we haven't accepted yet that we cannot afford to live the way we did only a few decades ago, and we probably won't until it's too late.
As such the collapse looming in the air could involve much more than 'just' the economy, and today's technology isn't very likely to survive a possible upheaval of those proportions.
Which would postpone the problem until the survivors manage to rebuild the civilization as we know it today, unless they are wiser than we have been and build something better.

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