It's important to remember that people said the same thing when machines started becoming part of assembly lines in the 20th century. The key insight was that while there was lots of very real short term employment pain, society's increased productivity allowed it to make more goods and services and thus employ more people than it did before. You're assuming demand is constant and different forms of productivity are simply competing with each other to fulfill it most efficiently. But that isn't true! As society becomes more productive, more stuff gets made, and more money gets created to buy it with, and everyone is richer.
Now maybe you think this time it's different, either because people won't be able to move up the "ladder" (like our grandparents learned to operate those machines) or that society won't be able to generate enough demand (which seems crazy to me, but okay). You could make that argument, but you aren't. Just pointing at innovations as job killers is like pointing at the sail and complaining about all the oarsmen who will be laid off.
Another lens to look at all of this through is the Star Trek future. In, like, three hundred years, what do you want society to look like? Like it does now, where people toil away at current productivity levels, or is everyone is vastly richer? Assuming you want that future to be awesome, how do you draw a line from here to there? Because the "we can't have technological disruption" attitude just can't really be on that line, right?
"society's increased productivity allowed it to make more goods and services and thus employ more people than it did before."
I agree, but only if we can solve our energy and resource problems. If we can't do that, supply constraints will keep that scenario from happening again. There won't be any growth. No growth + automation = massive unemployment.
Now maybe you think this time it's different, either because people won't be able to move up the "ladder" (like our grandparents learned to operate those machines) or that society won't be able to generate enough demand (which seems crazy to me, but okay). You could make that argument, but you aren't. Just pointing at innovations as job killers is like pointing at the sail and complaining about all the oarsmen who will be laid off.
Another lens to look at all of this through is the Star Trek future. In, like, three hundred years, what do you want society to look like? Like it does now, where people toil away at current productivity levels, or is everyone is vastly richer? Assuming you want that future to be awesome, how do you draw a line from here to there? Because the "we can't have technological disruption" attitude just can't really be on that line, right?