Jester,

I think of all of the pretty certain things you cite, the last is probablyy an absolute lock - there is no upside to politicians not kicking the can down the road, and unless voters become as sopisticated as many in Europe are (not likely), there is no incentive for them to do so, except if they really don't care about getting elected again.

One other issue that I can't see proactive measures even being much thought about: When a robot is intelligent enough to do your job (and the predictions from AI experts is that will apply to white collar jobs eventually, as well as blue collar jobs in progress), how will you compete against a machine whose maintenance costs (salary, vacation, benefits, eating, sleeping) etc. may well make them less expensive than hiring Ethiopians to do the work? Friend of mine said 'singularity' is inevitable, so that such machines will be indistinguishable in their abilities from humans. (e.g., imagine a psychotherapist who is a robot, but hidden from view, and the patient can't tell whether it is a human or machine presence that is responding. AI already can compose poetry and paint pictures that are credible.) And you might notice that a fair number of the more minor stories you read on sports in newspapers now has some tag at the front that indicates it was not a human who composed stats into a narrative story.

The only 'upside' to that I can see is some damn fine computer games to wade into - if you can afford them.