US automakers typically spend more per car on advertising than they spend on labor to build. Labor costs are often under 15% of total cost depending on the model. So even if they paid workers 50% more than today's wages, the cost of the car would "balloon" less than dealer markup.
Unions are not making American cars uncompetitive.
At a national and global scale, farmers moved to the cities to get work in factories operating the new machinery of industrialisation. And some were, or their children were, educated to become clerks based on a systemic development of education, ie RWr+aR. These clerks were critical to help account for all the widgets being created by industrialisation.
Point being, it was not accidental what happened to farmers during industrialisation of food production. they had a path. they were not left with nothing. so back to you. what next for out of work drivers or their children?
It's easy, at this distance, to look back and see that a large number of former farmers were able to find work in the new industrial factories and the like, and to simply ignore the fact that many of them did not.
Many of them saw their income dry up, and failed to pay back the loans they had taken out in the spring to be able to plant, and had their farms repossessed.
Many died.
Without some kind of comprehensive, structured program to provide jobs and/or retraining to people being put out of work by a major technological advancement, yes, some of those people are still going to do OK, but many if not most will struggle, suffer, and die. And right now, the government is actively slashing and burning structured programs to help people.
So I'd say the burden of proof lies on those who posit that "something will happen" to ensure that truckers being put out of work by self-driving trucks aren't just left destitute.
We are in agreement with the burden. Perhaps my point was not well made:
At the time farmers were being made destitute by industrialization we also invented the modern education system. This was a massive societal investment to compensate for the reduced number of farmers needed.
There needs to be a similar level of commitment to establishing a viable future for those displaced by AI. So see no indication that this investment will happen.
from TFA: "All of the images in this post were generated by an ai in response to the simple two-word prompt “lovely knitting”
Edit: ps: Kate Davies is an actual creator who has been creating knitting patterns for years.