>such abundance that we never have to work again. We have heard that lie for over a century.

I'm 0.6 centuries old and have never heard that said for existing tech. Human level AI could presumably do human work by definition but that's not the case before we get that, including now.

The 0.90 century old economicists were discussing the idea.

https://www.npr.org/2015/08/13/432122637/keynes-predicted-we...