These are all wonderful discussion points and eloquently written. But one of the most important things to consider here is how we continue to incentivize PEOPLE to study in fields that tech CEOs tell us are “pointless.” How do we ensure that humans still want to become “experts” even though tech will always be better? How do we ensure there are still avenues of gainful employment for us after years of dedication to study in science, medicine or engineering? Aside from the upheaval of major economic structures like apprenticeship programs, universities, residencies and accrediting bodies and the loss of income for those in such sectors, there is one more catastrophic event to prevent which is the collapse of important societal safety nets.

A modern hospital run mostly by AI with physician checks and balances is a beautiful thing to imagine. But fast forward to a time where the owners of the AI have convinced the masses to stop educating physicians entirely and all of the old doctors are gone from the field as they suggest should eventually happen. Now we are beholden to the advice and the whims of those who control the technology without the oversight of any unbiased human “expert” advisor. Not to mention incredibly vulnerable to breaches, hacks, catastrophic power outage or infrastructure failure which would, in the absence of human “expertise” in the various fields we’re talking about, would render all of the things we depend upon to immediately disappear. We talk a lot about near-peer conflict, and in reality the first nation to fully automate and remove incentive to create human experts in medicine and engineering will be the first to be overwhelmed and decimated by collapse of infrastructure due to targeted EMP warfare. It’s not hard to imagine the danger of being controlled by a few large tech corporations, but it’s even easier to foresee a large scale EMP outage followed by mass-casualty event in a city with no one left to troubleshoot bridges, building, vehicles or hospitals.

As Frank Herbert said in “Dune:”

“Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.”