I think the difference is the mechanism of automation. The cotton gin meant the millions cotton pickers were out of cotton picking work, but this was being somewhat offset by increased low-skill, low-intelligence factory work elsewhere. Inventions disrupted and enabled greater individual productivity in single verticals of work: cotton picking, logistics (steam engines), circular saw, etc. These productivity innovations enabled a single person to do the work of dozens or hundreds.
Today, robots are removing the need for a human at all in not just one but effectively every low skill, low intelligence job. We're not far from a world where the great automated farms that feed the majority of the US are run by a few people making sure a swarm of end to end farming machines aren't broken down. This will happen in the next 10 years. Slightly different robots are already automating logistics in warehouses, and soon they'll be driving our commercial trucks. They'll fly our planes, build our buildings, our cars, our electronics. Oh, you say, but someone needs to build the robots. Robots build the robots. They build the robots that build the robots. There will need to be people who design and program and repair the robots, but none of that is low skill or low education; the cotton picker of today couldn't build or design or repair a robot. It's impossible to predict the future, but the nature of accelerating returns suggests that in the next 50 years we will replace almost every low skill job worth automating. Notable exceptions are human facing jobs in the service industry, though I expect innovation will change things pretty wildly there as well. Looking at you, accountants.
The TL;DR: the difference between today and the industrial revolution is that robotics is capable of automating almost any low skill job, rather than enabling greater productivity for humans doing the job.
My main point is why will the automation from 2014-2024 be so qualitatively different than the automation from 2004-2014 such that society will be forced to phase in unconditional basic incomes or else be in substantial trouble? (And to be clear this is the question for nkoren. I agree with everything that you said. :D)
I think the difference is the mechanism of automation. The cotton gin meant the millions cotton pickers were out of cotton picking work, but this was being somewhat offset by increased low-skill, low-intelligence factory work elsewhere. Inventions disrupted and enabled greater individual productivity in single verticals of work: cotton picking, logistics (steam engines), circular saw, etc. These productivity innovations enabled a single person to do the work of dozens or hundreds.
Today, robots are removing the need for a human at all in not just one but effectively every low skill, low intelligence job. We're not far from a world where the great automated farms that feed the majority of the US are run by a few people making sure a swarm of end to end farming machines aren't broken down. This will happen in the next 10 years. Slightly different robots are already automating logistics in warehouses, and soon they'll be driving our commercial trucks. They'll fly our planes, build our buildings, our cars, our electronics. Oh, you say, but someone needs to build the robots. Robots build the robots. They build the robots that build the robots. There will need to be people who design and program and repair the robots, but none of that is low skill or low education; the cotton picker of today couldn't build or design or repair a robot. It's impossible to predict the future, but the nature of accelerating returns suggests that in the next 50 years we will replace almost every low skill job worth automating. Notable exceptions are human facing jobs in the service industry, though I expect innovation will change things pretty wildly there as well. Looking at you, accountants.
The TL;DR: the difference between today and the industrial revolution is that robotics is capable of automating almost any low skill job, rather than enabling greater productivity for humans doing the job.