Not a word that you wrote I didn't agree upon. In fact that leads to whay I am very cautious about in the future.

Philosophically, if the middle class ceases to exist were fucked.

What you pointed above covers my last sentence.

Even the white collar job won't be spared.

The way the world is moving right now is roughly: agriculture -> industrial -> service. Now, when the service sector is dominating the market, agriculture and industrial sectors still play big roles but with a different twist - the utilisation of automation. So now we have drones, GPS-equipped agriculture machinaries, big fully automated factories to do the works more efficiently that require less and less workers. The more. automation we get, the less low-skill workers we are going to need. So the job markets will shrink and we will need less and less people for a particular work. Thus, we are going to need new kind of jobs to cater for workers where previously their jobs has become obselete. Just imagine that a container tanker that is the size of a football field will need the same amount of. crew members (around 30) as compare to very small ship decades before.

Fortunately, more and more people were able to access education and become the middle-class, and propel industrialization and service industries further. The middle-class during this time will be relatively safe and enjoy quite confortable lives. But, those lower skills are under threats because more and more of their jobs are taken by machines. They have nowhere to go simply because they have no education. Right now there are still safe. They can works with amazon, they can drive ubers, ride door dash etc. And the ability to have this kind of odds jobs (I forget the term) and gain easy and fast money will make them complacent and dependable on these jobs and less eager to gain education. This is the trend that we are seeing more and more happening to generation Z.

The problems is this kind of jobs will not stay static. Somewhere along the ways, automation will come in their way and grasp the jobs from them. We are still in the infancy period, but once we are able to perfect the technology, automation is going to stay. So the pioneering tech that we see happening in California like self-driving ubers, automation in amazon warehouse, self-flying drones are going to be prevalent scenes, not in the near future, but somewhere in the future. When that happens, we need a new kind of jobs to cater for the low-skill workers. What kind of jobs? I don't know. But we need to have them. Or we need a different kind of society, more social oriented. If not, they will be doomed.

However, the middle-class won't be safe at all, for the same reason that happens to the low-income class: automation. In the future, automation will complement service industry by the utilisation of AI. Certain jobs will become obselete. We are going to need less workers, analogous during the industrial period. It will be easier to write a book, writer will be less dependent to proofreader/editor, less. teachers, less lecturers, less customer-facing workers etc. It is slowly happening now. More and more we will be using automated system (e.g. bots in chat apps) and will liaise with less human. Internet itself is a great example. Those who would be safe maybe are scientists and researchers, system maintainers, or technology developers. Simply say AI will take over many jobs. It won't be happening now, as the AI technology is still in infancy but I bet will happen sometimes in the future. During that time the middle-class will be fucked up. Rent will no longer be in parity with earnings, life will become harder, in fact middle-class will cease to exist and merging with low-income class as a result of automation.

Where will automation have the greatest impact? Sorry to say, but the developed nation will first suffer the consequences due to higher level of competition, high wagers and disparity of cost of. living wrt earnings. The developing nation will slowly learn from that.

That's my take: The impact of AI if the development of technology is not in parallel with the development of societal values.

That why I really disagree with the top OP - nonchalantly trivializing the impact of automation towards the low-income workers. Automation can be a gift or a curse, depending on how it is utilised.