Industrialization turned most farmers into blue collar workers. Computers and machinery turned most blue collar workers into white collar workers. What will AI turn white collar workers into?

A few hundred years ago, most people were farmers. But following the industrial revolution, we saw the number of farmers drastically decrease. People instead found their way into new fields, which could be characterized as "blue collar" work: factory workers, machinists, architectural drawers, etc.

Then throughout the late 20th century as computers started to take off, a lot of those jobs were either automated away and/or offshored. A large number of people once again found themselves in new "white collar" fields. These new roles often involved using computers.

But now we're again approaching a revolution with the advent of agentic systems and LLMs. But if agentic systems can suddenly automate most computer work (and heaven and earth is currently being moved to bring this to passs), what sort of work do the previous white collar workers transition to?

I've often heard that we automate tasks, not jobs, and that by automating tasks we are able to focus on more important things. But I fail to see what the "more important" stuff is in our current scenario. We can't all be managers, service workers, or skilled tradesmen. But what concerns me more, is the lack of infrastructure to support a mass transition from"white collar" work into whatever the new paradigm becomes. If the next decade involves a 15-20% reduction in white collar jobs, that's tens of millions of people who suddenly have to re-skill in the service industry, trades, or healthcare. That's not feasible, and nobody in power seemingly has a plan for this.

I read about the British textile workers spending decades in terrible living conditions following the automation of their labor, and it's worrisome to see the parallels to our current society.