An optimist might say that a pessimist’s imagination is too weak to foresee all the wonderful new job opportunities that automation will bring. But it is also possible that optimists’ imaginations are too weak to foresee an entirely different trajectory – one in which people enjoy the fruits of automated leisure rather than additional income.

London – What impact will automation, or the “rise of the robots,” have on wages and employment in the coming decades? These days, someone mentions it every time unemployment rises.

In the early 19th century, David Ricardo saw the potential for machines to replace Labour; Karl Marx had a similar view. Around the same time, the Luddites destroyed textile machinery, which they believed was taking their jobs.

The fear of machines faded as more people quickly found new jobs with better pay and conditions. But that’s not to say the initial fears were wrong. On the contrary, this fear is bound to be fulfilled in the distant future, and sooner or later we will not be able to find a job.

Unhappily, for some countries, such a long-term prospect may soon be on the horizon. In that case, what should people do when all or most jobs are replaced by machines?

More recently, manufacturing automation has even spread to areas where Labour is relatively cheap. In 2011, Chinese companies spent 8 billion yuan ($1.3 billion) on industrial robots. Foxconn, which makes ipads for Apple, also plans to open its first fully automated manufacturing facility in the next five to 10 years.

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The current trend of capital replacing Labour is not limited to manufacturing. The most obscure example is when supermarkets replace cashiers with bank self-service machines overseen by a single employee. (Though such automation would be inappropriate, since supermarkets offload some of the shopping to customers.)

A ready-made reason to placate fears that automation poses a threat to the employment of low-skilled workers is to train workers for more advanced jobs. But technological advances have now begun to erode more advanced work. A large number of safe human technical jobs that are now considered beyond simplification are likely to fall victim to the next technological revolution.

A recent article in the Financial Times pointed out that the application of technology in education and health care, two areas that are notoriously immune to productivity gains, has begun to affect the demand for skilled Labour. A range of highly skilled jobs, from translation to data analysis to legal research, are likely to shrink. So what training will the new generation of workers receive?

Optimists blithely assert that “many entirely new types of jobs will be created.” They ask us to imagine the lead driver of a multi-car road train, a senior data analyst or a robotic technician. But I don’t think many new jobs are being created.

Imagine a handful of technicians replacing a truckload of taxi and truck drivers, a handful of human technicians servicing an army of robot laborers, or a single data analyst using software to replace all quantitative research at a bank. In such an economy, employing labor will no longer be the primary role in creating value.