I think Ray Kurzweil is a little bit of a crackpot. His concept of the "singularity" is ludicrous to anyone in information technology with eyes to see. The simple fact that there's, by some measure, more raw computing power than all the biological brains in the world, doesn't mean a thing. It's like having a computer with a very high clock speed and no software to run on it. It's just a measure of raw power, not our ability to exploit it effectively, and certainly not the ability of the machines to run themselves. Or to have enough electricity to run them, a limitation that cryptocurrency "miners" are about to collide with.

If Ray is not a crackpot then he's a cynical opportunist making $$ off of hopeful and credulous fururists and/or fearmongering. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

All that said, yes, technology has been improving productivity geometrically since the 1970s at least, and it is making work obsolete -- or would be, if all the productivity wasn't being hoovered up by the wealthy. Peons like us were supposed to be working part-time for the same wages by now, and somehow we're working full time for even less wages.

At some point though, to keep the restive masses from tarring and feathering them, the elites are going to have to let go of some of the wealth, possibly in the form of a misbegotten implementation of a guaranteed minimum income, designed to placate people while simultaneously keeping them down.

Historically automation has created more jobs than it has replaced. We should never fear progress. It just forces us to progress as humans

AI and automation is the future of tech whether we like it or not. I don't think technological solutions to the problem of climate change will be quick enough to save us from our mess or the reality of extinction. If we do somehow find a way to survive our current insanity, automation may be one way we can exist on a much warmer planet Earth.

I love kurzgesagt on YouTube. He does an excellent job in the attached video looking at automation. Historically, as jobs in one sector decreased, they increased in a new sector. Manufacturing jobs have decreased by up to 80% in some areas, with dumb robots like the brick layer, and that is increasing. We simply need fewer people if we have machines that take on some of the work.

The bigger issues that need to be addressed have to do with machines getting smarter. There is no reason that the guys loading bricks need to be there if the machine can recognize and load the bricks and recognize any safety concerns like people crossing it's path and we have other machines to deliver those materials. We see this sort of smarts appearing in self driving cars.

We will definitely need to think about work differently.

See Technocracy Inc. They saw this coming in 1918. Would that I had known about it in my youth before the movement became moribund. It would have seen and could have steered us clear of so many problems we face now and improved the human condition as well. If adopted tomorrow I am not sure it could help us now.