Ask HN: If the bots take your job, what would you do?

This story has been playing out for a long time now. The plowshare, the printing press, textile mills, cars, etc...

The plowshare replaced a team of people doing the work by hand. What happened to those people when the plowing "robot" took their job?

I bet it was hard times for them, but you can't avoid the fact that we're all better off for it.

So, since we know what happened in history and can't see into the future, a more interesting way to pose this question with an understood context would be: if you were a field hand that lost your job to a plow, what would you do?

Or maybe something a little more recent in history?

THIS. I think basic income makes everyone becomes the same ... but people inherently need structures to climb up -- "power processes". Ted Kaczynski describes this very well in his essay "Industrial Society and it's Future" (crazy guy but actually saw the problem clearly) http://editions-hache.com/essais/pdf/kaczynski2.pdf I still think there are infinitely many amazing things to unlock and discover and everyone can be involved at various levels (whether it be experimenting and trying new things or being "subjects" in experiments) or coming up with experiments or areas of study.

The people at the top of the hierarchy would figure out the experiments with different levels / skill sets people could do. In this sense we would transition to an economy where we try to build the "System" to fit the "needs" in terms of power processes of humanity -- not just sustenance. In other words the economy becomes one where the people who are rewarded and get to the top are those that are able to create structures that enable people fulfill higher elements of maslows hierarchy than pure food and entertainment.

I don't think infinite resources equals the death of capitalism -- but rather, in a world where the bottom rungs of Maslows pyramid are fulfilled the only things of value become "systems" that enable people to exert power processes.

As some others have mentioned, the title vs the text confuse a little.

The main difficulty in the thought process is what is meant by "my job". Of course, it can't literally be just my job. It would have to be a class of jobs. What class? I do a little supervision, a little data analysis, a little CRUD app maintenance/development. The hardest part of my job is translating customer requests/requirements into action without adverse side effects. So we can imagine a NLP+AI type bot could potentially solve that problem.

So in that case, there's now globally little-to-no demand for intermediate level programming and analysis. So I can't just switch to another, similar job.

At that point, what happens depends strongly on the environment. My wife is now in training to be a nurse. Has she completed that training and is so working when the automation event occurs? If so and if her job is unimpacted, then we simply downsize our lifestyle to accommodate the reduced income.

Does basic income exist at the point when the automation event occurs? If so, that's a fallback.

Have any new industries appeared as a result of new technology that don't exist today? If so, what kind of entry requirements are observed? What timeline would I estimate to attempt to retrain? Could it be done before the target industry itself is automated away?

As a final fallback, I'm lucky to have a supportive family in the area. I would describe my situation and offer to do their household chores in exchange for room and board.

Choose a new career where the margins are small enough to not justify being replaced by bots before I die.