Rubic,

The point is not the dramatic change, but the speed of the change. You mention nearly a century for the transition; I would be surprised if the AI transformation took more than a decade to be decisive. I would also point out the reduction of the standard of living for the average farm hand who ended up in a slum, working (alongside his children) in a sweatshop.

While I guess, since engineering is essentially a discipline of decision making, there will probably still be vocations where their skills are important and there will always be crooked politician slots available for former lawyers, and bone-sawing will be around for the doctors, accountants may find themselves in a pile of slide rules.

There should be discussions about turning unemployment into the more positive "excess leisure time".

Jeff