Man vs Machine - Why John Henry Lost and We Will Too

The New York Times had an article the other day that addresses one of the key issues of this century. Specifically while 9% unemployment may seem bad, we may eventually think of that as the "good old days".

There has been a fair bit of discussion on this over on Hacker News, and I'd like to repeat my .02 here for folks not commonly used to reading there:

"So if you had their attention what would you tell them? If there is a solution to this problem that lets us all retire without the economy collapsing, I'd be curious to hear it. As it is we can put off that day for some time, but eventually you will get to the point where the "thinking machines" have all the knowledge of how to run our companies. Then the only jobs left will be those that can't be learned. I don't see all of us becoming artists, and even if we did, how would we con the machines into paying us for it?"

To make it clear, I don't see the trend of humans being replaced by machines, thinking or otherwise, changing in any reasonable time frame.  The story of John Henry ends with him beating the steam driven machine, but which of them was around to work the next day? So it is likely to go from here on out. As such, I really am curious as to what folks think the majority of humans are going to find to do of sufficient value to keep our families housed, clothed, and fed?


Feel free to leave your ideas in the comments section :-)