how worse?
There doesn't seem to be much interest in using this to make people work less and engage in the rest of life more, hence the jokes about how somehow, the machines are generating art while folks are still toiling away to make ends meet.
The class division is even in the original message we're responding to: failing to get on the bandwagon or being pushed from it leads to lower income and status despite there being plenty to go around if we only stopped chasing infinite growth.
The only argument I've heard to far about how this is the path to betterment relies on getting past a theoretical hump where AI and robotics go further and can replace most labour, and the upper class giving up it's power over the masses voluntarily instead of going further down the same road we're already on.
I can't speak much for the first, but I think trickle-down economics has better chances of working out than the second (i.e. none).
Two hundred years ago, shirts had to be hand-spun, hand-woven, and hand-sewn, so ordinary people could only own one or two. Now because of automation and factories they are so cheap that poor people have many.
Previously 97% of the workforce was engaged in agriculture, and even in the 20th century, famines killed millions. Now with increased productivity we create so much food that obesity is the defining health crisis of our time.
All classes have been able afford better clothing and more food, not just those owning the means of production.
> instead of going further down the same road we're already on
Even in the last 25 years, we've seen large increases in life expectancy, child mortality fell by more than 50%, 1 billion people left extreme poverty, access to knowledge and education expanded, and more.
But I think we both can at least agree on this - AI can actually replace some labour or augment it enough to require some shuffling.
My argument is that if AI brings efficiencies, products become cheaper and cost of living reduces. It's how it always worked - agricultural revolution, industrial revolution and information revolution. Cost of living reduced constantly because efficiency increased.
> upper class giving up it's power over the masses voluntarily
The upper class needs labour to consume their products. So it is in both interests that both labour has more money to spend. What then happens is, people are richer but the upper class gets even more wealth. Everyone benefits.