You didn’t actually address any of my points except to say AI is not “smoke and mirrors”. Well there may be some clever algorithms in SatNav systems, especially those operating driverless cars, but none of these are Artificial Intelligence, yet: they are just computer programs written by human programmers.
I agree absolutely with your statement “we have no idea what is really going to happen except that almost everything is in rapid change.” Clearly the writers of your article have no idea either:
We’ve been “standing on the brink” of the 4th Industrial revolution for at least 20 years, and it still isn’t here. The World Economic Forum must be composed of science-fiction fan optimists who never read any dystopian fiction. It is all exaggerated predictions of wonderful progress, based not on hard data but on hyperbole for its own sake. If you think “virtual assistants and software that translate or invest” are examples of Artificial Intelligence, try asking an Airline bot for a reprint of an invoice, or a Bank bot to correct a Bank clerical error: if the programmer didn’t imagine the scenario, the so-called AI can’t either. You will know you have met an AI when your cannot tell whether it is a bot or a human at the other end, or when you explain a problem to a computer and it then writes a new application to solve that problem. We are not there yet.
What will the Software industry do when machines generate code by themselves?
This is all a sideline to the main point which was that the US Country doesn’t need the US Cities as much as the Cities need the Country!