Perhaps the feeling is that in a competitive society (which most of us live in) as long as things aren't collapsing I don't see why a plumber/doctor should care if a bunch of lawyers and software devs will be out of a job. They will become relatively wealthier even if their income is taking a hit. Their purchasing power should rise if most of white collar work is collapsing.
They would become wealthier in a real sense, since the services that used to be provided by the scarce labor of lawyers and software devs would now be far cheaper. In fact due to Jevons' paradox, even lawyers and software devs would enjoy far higher living standards due to AI. The boost in efficiency just creates a spike in demand for the remaining human component of the job, no matter how tiny.
How would cheaper software development or lawyers massively raise standard of living for other people? Most people that need their standard of living improved don't even own computers, they generally don't have access to the capital needed to start a businesses, and they have no use for a lawyer outside of criminal matters.
That kind of thinking might work if 1, or 5, or 10% lose their income. If 50% do, there's revolution. And that's not great for anyone, including plumbers and doctors.
We will never see 50% of people lose their income, they'll just gradually transition into newer AI-powered roles. Their income will grow rather than shrink. The people who are at risk of losing their income will be those who reject working with AI entirely, but that's because they will be gradually made uncompetitive.
What are these newer AI-powered roles? Let's get to the specifics, please. I'm open to transition, or learn new, give me please a few starting points. I know AI and agents and skills.md already, so let's skip the basics, indicate me a few new jobs I could take.
The specifics is that AI just isn't good enough and there's a huge amount of viable human white-collar work. We're just speculating about what might happen in a future where AI gets good enough to perform most current white-collar jobs.
Yes, widespread automation of knowledge work is unlikely to decrease total production, so all the goods and services people currently demand will still be provided, but the power dynamic of who is consuming and who is providing might flip around. So a bunch of formerly upwardly-mobile people could end up at the bottom of the social hierarchy while others whom they used to look down upon will be able to afford servants for the first time in their lives.
I see little evidence that any social role reversal is going to occur. This technology is soon going to price out average to poor people when they have to pay true token costs. It might be the case that only the rich and powerful have access to the powerful models.
Poor people with hard-to-automate occupations don't necessarily need to be able to afford token costs for social role reversal to occur. They only need to be able to hire an even poorer person who used to earn a salary that exceeded even those token costs and who was laid off as a result.
After going without food for a few days, even a software dev is going to have to swallow their pride and consider alternative employment options. You might think they could just take a poor person's existing job, but why would for example a meatpacking plant hire a software dev with zero meatpacking experience when they already have lots of experienced meatpackers and meat demand hasn't gone up? Meanwhile, the meatpackers might like it if they could have someone babysit their children, cook for them and clean their now much larger house (which used to belong to a software dev who fell on hard times and had to move out). And a steady supply of desolate characters holding up cardboard signs saying "I used to be a software dev, but now I would do literally anything for a meal" could put such luxury into their affordable range.
