The removal of jobs with low added value is why we are getting richer. Hopefully automatic drivers will remove the need for truckers. Another unhealthy poor job.

Who's "we"?

As a developer, I get where you're coming from. I look around and I see how many jobs could be automated with some kind of program, and how that would free up resources to spend against other things. The problem with this kind of 100% efficiency driven thinking is that it strips humanity from the equation and treats us as nothing more than the output we produce according to some kind of hyper-capitalism algorithm devoid of moral and ethical compass.

But the truth is most people aren't getting richer. They're getting much, much poorer as wages have been stagnant for decades and costs have risen drastically over the same period of time. Its precisely because of that kind of 100% efficiency driven mentality that we've fallen this far and seen wealth centralize this much.

Without a basic-income, the west will be swimming in poverty within the next 10-15 years as people become trapped in unemployment lines due to automation. If we had a basic income, people could fall back on that and re-train for new fields to stay competitive in the changing job market. But without it, people will instead become trapped by their debt and lose everything as capitalism stomps out the last breaths of the economy. Its an unsustainable trajectory and it will have its blowback sooner or later.