> I have great confidence in our abilities to create more work for each other.
This is because we have a lot of people who don't like the idea of having to go work while others sit around on their ass getting checks. I get it. It's the most natural thing in the world, but we've got to evolve past it and we've got to evolve past it right now. Not 50 years from now, not 10 years from now, right now.
A shitload of people are going to be out of jobs very soon. Sooner than anyone thinks, actually.
And there's really only two paths this goes. We institute Universal Basic Income and some kind of program or programs to help you learn a skill that doesn't lend itself to automation well... or... the wealthy continue to horde everything and half the population starves to death... which doesn't happen, because when people get hungry, they start to kill the wealthy. And frankly even with a swarm of murderdrones, good luck stopping 200,000,000 people from killing you.
Evolving towards Star Trek's Federation is the way to go, I just hope rich people aren't too damn stupid to do it.
Half the global population lives on less than $7 a day. I admire your optimism, but it's perfectly possible to keep large swathes of people living in abject poverty.
$7 a day is a step up from the olden days for those people. They're pleased with that.
$7 a day would be a step down for first-world (and second-world) economies. I think people would be very unhappy. Very very very unhappy.