The lack of empathy is incredibly depressing...
The solution isn't to halt technological progress to try to defend the few jobs that are actually available in that sector, the solution is to fight forward to a future where no one has to do dull and boring things just to put food on the table. Fight for future where people can pursue what they want regardless of whether it's profitable.
Most of that fight is social and political, but progress in ML is an important precursor. We can't free everyone from the dull and repetitive until we have automated all of it.
Technological progress is not a linear deterministic progression. We decide how to progress every step of the way. The problem is that we are making dogshit decisions for some reason
Maybe we lack the creativity to envision alternative futures. How does a society become so uncreative I wonder
Capitalism is particularly good at weaponizing our own ideas against us. See large corporations co-opting anti-capitalist movements for sales and PR.
Pepsi-co was probably mad that they couldn't co-op "defund the police", "fuck 12", and "ACAB" like they could with "black lives matter".
Anything near and dear to us will be manipulated into a scientific formula to make a profit, and anything that cannot is rejected by any kind of mainstream media.
See: Capitalist Realism and Manufactured Consent(for how advertising effects freedom of speech in any media platform).
Mixed social-democratic economies are nice and better than plutocracies, but they have capitalism; they just have other economic forms alongside it.
(Needing to profit isn’t exclusive to capitalism either. Socialist societies also need productivity and profit, because they need to reinvest.)
It’s not a fantasy idea. I grow up there and it’s still working.
It’s not out of beautiful idea either. But sheer pragmatism.
A country will always need those things and those are important things. We might as well invest in them for the long run.
Clearly those are not hip idea anymore. Oh well.