Introduction

At some time in the twenty-first century, the USA will start the transition into an economy with no human work. After the inflection point, job destruction will be greater than job creation and overall employment will decline. Once the decline starts, it will continue, and human employment over the next several centuries will approach a very small fraction of current employment, perhaps even zero. This book deals with the transition, not the end result. Chapter 1 provides and overview of the book. Factors that influence the creation and adoption of new technology are considered in Chap. 2 . The next chapter deals with advancing digital technology leading up the development of the political economic social nervous system. Application in automation can be applied to both physical and information processes. Two types of automation are programmable automation that is based on using rules to define the process being automated and trainable automation where the program performing the automation must be trained on large amounts of data prior to its application. Chapter 4 focuses on physical process automation and Chap. 5 on information process automation. The impact on employment is considered at the end of Chap. 5 . In order to make smooth progress in the great transition, many reforms of government are needed. Chapter 6 focuses on those government problems for which Biden has made some progress and Chap. 7 focuses on those government problems for which Biden has made little progress. The final Chapter presents an estimate that the inflection point is likely to occur by 2050. Alternative means of providing income to the people without jobs is considered. Finally the problem of what people without work are going to do is considered and its impact on social organization.