100 years ago tractors and machinery were replacing farm workers etc...
Obviously AI is a step up since you at least needed humans to operate many machines.
Some kind of UBI might be inevitable, higher taxes for large/most profitable companies might fuel it. But that's my idealistic view of it.
I firmly believe they will have no problem trying to cull the population with autonomous drones and such once they think they no longer need us. Our leadership is not filled with virtuous people
They wouldn't really need to cull the population proactively, they just need to make sure they can defend themselves against the inevitable uprisings when people can't afford to eat and feed their families.
It would be much easier to justify their actions to themselves in the name of defense. Even non-virtuous people like to be able to convincingly lie to themselves about being good people.
Arguably the best way to defend against the threat of uprising is to get rid of it before people reach that breaking point
I dunno, maybe by starting detainment camps under the guise of deporting people who are in the country illegally
Who knows. We have no really good examples of this sort of large scale population culling to draw from in history
You quite simply cannot defend yourself from millions of people who have absolutely nothing to live for other than to see you drawn and quartered. Sheer numbers will overwhelm any conceivable defense.
One could claim that has been in the works for many decades but surely only a conspiracy theorist would belive that so just be a good citizen and stop noticing.