Not so long ago automation and artificial intelligence were things of an imagined future. In 2018 we live in a world where automation has changed everything. Progressively workers have been replaced in every sector. Take for example agriculture, Harvesting used to be a tortuous exercise taking whole sections of the community to bring in the crops. The advent of harvesting machines of course changed how this is done but combined with a computer man becomes almost superfolous. The same is true for mining, the auto industry, even the military.
So with machines soon able to pretty much do most of the actual physical labour (who knows how far this could go the implications are endless) we have a problem and that is money.
Our modern financial system is based on the premise that work equals reward. That work is morally good and highly valued. The idea that if you work hard you can get anything is a pretty modern phenomena to be honest it is now an ingrained idea in society in general.
Money is a tricky thing to define as well. If you look at the reality central banks just press a button and out pops some digital money which can be exchanged for bank notes etc. We value "money" because we relate it to our hard work and our well being. In reality steem, bitcoin in the rest are far healthier than the current "real" financial world because of the technology of the blockchain.
(this stuff only has value if you give it value)
So what happens if the work is gone? Firstly unemployment will rise. Secondly welfare bills will massively increase with the rise unemployment (unless of course you leave people to starve). Thirdly the owners of the mechanised industries will become disproportionately wealthy, machines are cheaper than people therefore when you get a machine working you make more money. Fourthly the divide between rich and poor will increase. Some might say we are actually seeing beginnings of this now. However it is a recipe for descent into a dystopian society.
So is a solution. To me it is rewarding the one thing machines could never really do and that is innovation. Steemit could be the kind of platform (if people cut out innovating ingenious ways to get steem for a bot posting one line) that could reward people for genuine human progress. This could extend to whole world were all human progress is rewarded on the merit of their contributions.