Could be lack of imagination on my part but I truly can't imaging shipping 1000's of lines of code that I can't understand (beyond low-stakes prototypes). That means there's a ceiling on productivity gains.
We should aspire to increase our quality of life, but keep perspective on what are new problems and crises, what are old problems and may still be unsolved. Cheap and abundant housing supply for everyone to live alone is and old problem and unsolved.
You assume the goal is to move out, but it might not be. Extended families have lived together in many parts of the world throughout history. Expectations of living alone are relatively new.
If you prefer to live in a low density exurb, you have many options for affordable housing, there's just a lack of good paying jobs and services in those areas.
re: concerns at a societal level. More people are making software than before. People who have been coding for a long time have moved up an abstraction layer and are further from the code. But many people are actually closer to the code than before.
The number of people now involved in software development has now increased because of a lower barrier to entry. I know many people who would previously use a no-code tool or hire offshore devs, or simply not have their problem solved, who are now vibe coding. Many of these people couldn't write very much code manually if they had to, but they're closer to understanding software than they were previously.
It's about efficiency not just corruption. When you call taxi dispatch a human answers and coordinates with other humans. Takes longer and they sometimes drop the ball.
AI should be used for all the bullshit tasks that no one wants to do. There are garbage dumps full of stuff that can be reused and recycled. But it's not high enough ROI to pay someone $25/h to sort trash, so it isn't happening.
not a question just a comment - I read The Lean Startup years ago, still think about it about once a week. I regularly give away copies to people starting companies who I see going down a bad path with no tight feedback loop.
It's hard to convince kids why they should learn advanced abstract math, beyond what is necessary to calculate the tip on a restaurant bill. The number of high school students who will use advanced math beyond high school is very small, but those that do will have high impact, which is both in society's interest and their own interest as high earners.
The kids that study and apply themselves, I don't think it's so much that they can see they understand the benefits of linear algebra at the time, it's that their parents and the social network they're a part of sends them signals that this is what they should do to be successful and they're rewarded for doing well in school.