I don't think it's fair for you to make the comparison between automobiles and AI because one was meant to facilitate the laboriousness of human/cargo transportation while the other is a continuously evolving deep learning machine that becomes progressively knowledgeable the more data it consumes. AI, along with automation is nothing like we have ever seen before, and it threatens the job security and livelihood of millions, it is not something that can be brushed off as just another consequence of the industrial revolution because the level of job displacement we saw with the introduction of the automobile or any other preceding invention like the steam engine or the printing press pales in comparison to the level of job displacement we will see with automation/AI.
AI facilitates the mundanity and repetitive tasks that we already created factory machines and computers for. Your computer, as you're reading this, is performing trillions of operations a second. No human can, nor should, be doing such tasks. But more importantly, there was never a need for humans to do the types of operations a computer does at the rate and scale that it does. Likewise, AI technology is going to be a great extension of the tasks we already don't do and will do so much more than we never needed to do, either in society or in the marketplace.
The tasks it will do that we already do is a human problem, not a problem of the technology itself. You should be concerned about the businesses and corporations implementing and utilizing the technology, not the technology itself. Are you afraid of a gun, the man holding a gun, a gun being pointed at you, or the man behind the gun pointed at you? If you're afraid of the gun and not the person, you're misplacing your focus.
The mechanism of the technology is mostly irrelevant, as far as job displacement is concerned. It's the effect of the scale that you seem to be especially concerned about. The phenomenon itself is as old as the first stone-tipped spear. After a decade or two of unemployment, civil unrest, and chaos, that problem will sort itself out. Governments will help ease the marketplace obsolescence of its respective populations, but after every trough is a peak.
Around 1950 automobiles became commonplace among the populace. The global population was also ~25% of what it is now. I haven't been able to find the statistics of global job displacement, and I'm not sure if that data is available. The automobile was the last paradigm-shifting technology we've had. The ability to travel great distances on ground changed more things than the average person can conceive of. With highly trained, specialized AI programs, you can have products like real-time language translation happening through your wifi sunglasses or right into an earpiece you would wear. You can communicate with anyone in the world, in any language, in-person, as if you were speaking your native tongue to them. And such a possibility is just off of the top of my head. Such a thing is technically possible today in a limited capacity.
People are afraid of what they don't understand. They are limited by their fears and their lack of imagination.
While it may create new job opportunities, I do recall reading a study that found one third of the American population was either computer illiterate or had limited to no technology skills, which would make it difficult to for them to fill in jobs where they supervise other automation systems that operate on three or more axes: industrial manufacturing machines like the cylindrical(rotary joint robots that slide and move vertically and horizontally) and articulated robots (human arm like robots)
That's the problem for the 1/3, not the 2/3 who will survive and maybe even thrive. Besides, they are very likely not going to be the technicians and operators of commercial technology products that will emerge from the jobs in industries that the AI explosion will create.
The most automatable activities are ones that operate machinery in a predictable environment, so I could see people who weld and solder on assembly lines, prepare food and package objects or other easily replicable activity being replaced while those who work in construction, forestry or help raise outdoor animals at a lower risk.
Any job with little or no lateral freedom or complexity of task completion is at the highest risk of replacement and marketplace obsolescence via automation.
Agree, but the goal of every business is to meet their quotas and opt for the most profitable option first and foremost, with social connection being an afterthought in most industries with the exception of the hospitality industry, the latter of which only makes a small sliver of the service industry and a very small contribution [percentage wise] contribution to the US GDP. When I go to the grocery store, I see most people rush over to the self-service aisles because they would rather bag and pay for their own food rather than have someone else do it for them. There would be one supervising staff member that would assist customers if the machine threw up an error and broke down, but the one job opening made for that supervisor was outnumbered by the four to six traditional checkouts that were replaced by those machines and would have otherwise been manned by a group of cashiers.
Yes, and? The moment self-checkouts were announced, the immediate expectation would be that some jobs will be lost (doesn't take a genius to see this one). Businesses have been doing this (replacing their people with machines - or cheaper labor) for over a century, continue to do this today, and will never cease doing this in future unless the government they do business under points their guns at them and forces them to stop, at which point they will likely leave the country and take their business elsewhere.
How is this a new problem? It's the same problem of businesses trying to increase their profits, decrease their expenses, and screwing over the workers as a consequence. They don't care how they do it or what tools (technology) they use.
It's not your problem until you're the one being affected. If everyone had the same apathetic stance towards petitioning legislation officials to write laws in the interest of the public, curbing the effects of automation and AI would be close to impossible and we would be backsliding away from a representative democracy. This has already happened in countries like Mauritius where eligible voters would be absent from registration rolls because they thought the same way as you.
Right. I don't care about being mauled by a lion until I'm being chased by a lion and can't get to safety. But I'm fully aware of the lion's capability and arm myself with a rifle just in case.
Are you seriously trying to guilt me for being capable of surviving an impending "AI apocalypse" that everyone is fear-mongering? This is not an existential threat to the species. We're not in a Terminator movie.