This is how the world ends - robots take all the jobs, people have no money to buy the goods & services the robots provide, the robots get laid off, then Skynet becomes self-aware. Let's just hope Sarah Connor has her act together.
Don't bank on saviours: Arnold has already had a heart event and I think Rambo has gone to ground again.
But yes, I do think that the world has been blind. It was too easy and oh, so fashionable to blame the Luddites for everything, but I saw this coming a long time ago. Not only with the demise of different work opportunities, but also with the failure of design and art to retain its value in society. Look at the 50s US car industry and now: I saw a newish black Cadillac the other day - a very rare even here - but it was not large, it was squarish from the back, and the only marque indicator was the Cadillac script on the tail... would a '58 or '59 have been so utterly anonymous? I don't think so. Look at current Mercedes cars, too: bars of soap. With all of them, you guess where the front and rear might be. That's design improvement, you understand. Extend the thought to cameras: what looks sexy now? Nothing. When did anyone in the first world last take a toaster to the shop for a repair? Throw everything out and buy more crap.
As we have fought for the newest everything, we have sacrificed true value and reliability born of experience and the time to make evolutionary corrections to products. It's bling before common sense and usefulness. An image of a half-eaten apple is more desired than any alternative that works as well; it even sells stuff that isn't absolutely
necessary but hell, that makes more sense than spending the same on good food instead of fast.
I guess there's a common death wish abroad.
Rob C