The point of the article isn't that we will have no need to work; that remains an open question. The body of the article is exploring previous societies or segments of society in which no one needed to have a job, and how they lived their lives, as a way of pondering what a post-work world would look like. It's not particular pollyannic in tone once you get past the opening paragraphs.

If the author wanted to write a purely historical essay she is more than welcome to. Instead she chose a framing device of a post-work society thanks to AI that I think undermines the whole article.

"Aristocrats are (typically) rich, which we certainly will be if we have robots capable of all normal nonrelational labor." ...okay

Well, the article seems mostly theoretical. One of the premises of the article is that the capital owners (who thus own the economy, and the political system, and the legal system and the law enforcement) will give the rest of the people enough to assuage economic anxieties.

We know this premise is pure fantasy. For example Michigan which produces so much food it cannot even eat all of would not provide free school lunches for students: https://www.michigan.gov/mde/news-and-information/press-rele...