There's so much fearmongering about AI and robots and the inevitable technological future closing off all human work but I think it is far more likely only a small subset of computerized work is going to remain in twenty to forty years. Part of this is my experience on the ~ i n s i d e ~ as a former minor tech executive, part of it is the experience of my extended family in Japan after their crash in the 90s. Do people realize that so much of the AI/robot/digitization stuff is subsidized market front running? Basically a group of wealthy companies get together, decide a market they want to corner, define the budget and timeline, and get to work annhilating the existing market so they can swoop in with their replacement (ideally as a monopsony provider a la google or amazon). If an 'industry' is big enough, like very fast chips, governments will even get involved to block competitor countries' products to secure their national champions.
The biggest problem with all of this (it has been going on longer than I've been alive, like forty five years now) is that it has chewed up so much personal livelihood everywhere that enacted these policies that only like 15% or less of the people in those countries can buy the products produced. Because most people don't have the disposable cash any longer to buy the expensive computerized crap except under duress, like when they have to get a new car or new computer. I enjoy playing and making video games too, but I know why so many are in the industry: it is one of the few remaining options to be an independent producer because it requires minimal tools and can be bootstrapped solo by not paying for your own labor.
So I think what is actually going to happen is a big shift back to hyper-local production, of everything, and there will be an emphasis on employing as many people as possible (so taxes can be collected) instead of 'efficiency' and 'productivity'. It will take a lot longer than the dummies in charge think because decades of neoliberal looting will take decades to repair. And this is going to collide with wild weather changes and power outages (another reason why the data centers and robot future aren't going to be widespread). But it will be cool because there will be a return of actual diversity of stuff that is created instead of the same four companies churning out copies of the same stuff. I like to imagine things like regionally-specific mp3 player styles in the same way we describe old pottery. There will be an assumption that the AI and mass scale tools are just there for plagiarism and theft so you'll have to actually go in person to do coolhunting, and it will be impossible to scale up or influence off it because all the platform middlemen will be gone.
