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RE: What will automation mean for the low-skilled?
"I think we faced very similar thing in the industrial revolution (assembly line work) and with franchising (death of many small businesses)"
Because we don't live very long, we often miss the bigger picture. You're right that mass automation has been going on for 200 years, it's only now it's boiling over to the point where jobs can't be so easily replaced and new industries are all but inaccessible to the lower-skilled that we're starting to see that billions of people may not have a way to put food on the table.
Actually world hunger has been drastically reduced with China becoming more wealthy and investing in Africa, but I agree that we need to think about a radical change of our economic and political system to face the possibilities our technology gives us.
Sorry, didn't have time to respond the other day, had to go to a wedding. "Putting food on the table" is a British phrase meaning to earn a wage. It doesn't litterally mean buying food. Perhaps it's a poor choice of a phrase as I can see it might not travel well.