Long time something to write about: The title is just a conjecture.
I had been a fan of "law of accelerating returns" as noted Ray Kurzweil because that explains very clearly the underlying force of technology feeding on itself with the help of creative humans to accelerate the pace of change that is perceptibly changing the context that we are living in.
Some days ago in Businessweek, I read an article on Fanuc (robotics machinery manufacturer in Japan) & then today I was reading the 6th Extinction and suddenly the thought struck me that the demise starts slowly, but would accelerate as the forces of change gain strength. Old will be replaced by new within no time.
My conjecture is that the changes brought about by the AI and robotics will rapidly invalidate and change many of the underpinning assumptions based on which the society of today is functioning such as people getting educated and finding employment. These people becoming consumers & supporting the financial growth (ever expanding pie). There would be more people & less employment opportunities, so the pie would start shrinking at some point in time. This would force businesses to automate more to maintain margins. This would shrink the pie further. There would be opportunities for very few people who are experts in the variety of domains to teach the "inorganic" systems how to become experts in the domains. So the law of accelerating returns in technology would lead to law of accelerating demise for the system that will be replaced by the technological innovations.
That again leads to one more interesting question.
Will governments of the world develop robot army? I believe the answer is Yes (we already see it in drones). Why is it so? The answer would be in game theory. If I don't do; I can't trust others not to do. (Prisoner's dilemma???). The second part is unlike Nuclear weapons which deter nations from use due to MAD (Mutually assured destruction), robot armies appear safe due to "smaller damage" and can also provide differentiated advantage to the nations that have them.
What is that an individual should do? Plan your response :-).
