Luxurious Leisure

If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed.  Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution.  So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality.

-- Stephen Hawking (1942-), Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) Science, 8 October 2015