Maybe it's misplaced optimism or maybe I'm right on target.
For years, I've suggested that despite the doomsday predictions that half of us (or whatever the current consensus is) will quickly be replaced by technology in the workplace, I don't see it happening. That's not to say that automation and robot technology won't consume many existing jobs but that if history holds it'll open up numerous other doors that don't exist right now. Most of the doomsday outcomes for the labor market are based on linear thought. What those estimates and lines of thinking don't account for are the untold doors, technologies and jobs that will be created in opportunities that don't exist. Here's a quick example.
Remember how the internet was going to kill every job that existed before it? The most recent estimate (2016), is that net-net (jobs eliminated compared to jobs created), the internet created about 1.7 million new jobs. So enough with the nonsense about robots putting everybody out of work already. But that's not what this particular story is about...You might have a job in the future but will you be working for a robot?
Many of the dire futuristic opinions suggest that when the robots and AI are smarter than us - humanity could be in trouble. It's kinda hard to argue that point. And guess what we're there. While the average IQ of our digital assistants like Alexa, Cortana and Siri are still under 50. The best and the brightest in computer AI is well beyond that figure. Alibaba (the Amazon of China) and Microsoft have been working on creating AI that exceeds the reading comprehension of humans. They just did it.
On a Stanford reading comprehension test the average person scored an 82.3. Alibaba's AI scored an 82.4 and Microsoft's technology topped both at an 82.7 (btw, numerous other companies attempted to compete including Facebook and Samsung but with significantly lower performance). So now what? Technology exists with leading consumer technology companies that is now more comprehensibly literate than us. Let's hope that the "don't be evil" mindset wins out.