For starters... I don't believe automation will make jobs disappear. Automation has happened since the industrial revolution and it has only generated more jobs than taken. Yeah, the old jobs disappeared, but new jobs started coming up to cover for the free-time effects of the industrial revolution. As long as people keep innovating and wanting to make a good bit of money on the current state of society, new jobs will keep being created. Maybe it is a robot waiter that will bring you your drinks while you are a couch potato, but a lot of human hours will be needed before that robot will see the light...
I am a strong believer in the UBI as a freedom giver. It will give people the opportunity to turn their hobbies into jobs. And it may not pay that much, but that doesn't really matter. Human nature wants to not sit still but do something. It is only depression that makes people want to plug into a virtual life, do nothing but being entertained and stay there. I believe freedom and creativity are depression killers... And so people will always unplug.
Humans can do two things, physical and mental. In the past much of the physical moved into the mental or less physical as automation took over the heavy lifting. AI will be able to control and handle both aspects better than us.
When it happens, it will happen swiftly.
And, depression is on the live as people become disconnected and more sedentary.
I do too yet, observation doesn't show a lot of creativity in the average thinker.
lack of creativity in the case of the average thinker could just be a result of their mind-numbing jobs that they are currently in. Or the stress they are in to make ends meet. We might not all be creative so that we turn into painters, but I do believe people in general are creative enough to come up with new and different things to do.
When we zoom into the mental part of what humans can do and AI can take over, it makes sense to make a distinction between some different parts of that. For instance: Empathy. This is something that can't be achieved with AI and is a very important aspect of some jobs, like police officers (although they might not look that empathic in some countries). Other things are creativity, judgment and there probably are more. I foresee a switch to more jobs coming up in those areas as a result of AI. With the epidemic of depression that you talk about a logical result would be an increase in psychotherapists ;)
If people were more creative, why did they wind up in mind-numbing jobs? Einstein was a patent clerk so he had time to think.
Empathy is programmable as it reads environmental signals. It is only a matter of time. Compassion is likely the greater trait though as it comes with action to act to ease suffering without requiring a personal connection.
At first I think you are right but it won't take long for an AI to create a better AI.
Maybe the increase in psychotherapists are driving the depression rates ;)
We're all doomed!! :D