how you prepare to survive during the 4th Industrial Revolution (AI)?

If that worries you that much, yes. Retrain as an electrician, plumber or dressmaker.

I wouldn't bet that physical robotics will lag behind for long if AI does get to the point where it takes most knowledge jobs. Automating software development has turned out to be both easier and more profitable than automating plumbing, but that doesn't mean no one is ever going to automate plumbing. So as a software developer, I'm earning and investing money while I still can, and I'm doing the things on my bucket list in case we get the worst-case scenario. I think that in the long term, the outcome in which I still need money but have no way of earning it is less likely than either the "good end" or the "bad end" in which no one needs money anymore, so sometimes I feel silly saving up money I think I will probably never spend, but better safer than sorrier.

Your worst-case-scenario framing makes the question redundant.

You’re essentially asking: ‘Let’s imagine that something _really_ bad is going to happen. Is it worth preparing for it?’

"Are you living in the real world?"
"Do you have a comrade?"
"Do you have a plan?"
Me:

Don’t fall for the propaganda, AI can not execute real world technical tasks at a level that is acceptable.
It is good for code, creative thinking or literary but tasks which require experience, real life human interactions, it is just not ready yet.

it is lagging 10-15 years of application development and even then it is only going to be able to compete with traditional execution.

By letting all the copper thieves know where they can find a shitton of copper.

I'm in tech but I've got a manual trade I could fall back on. Unless robotics takes that from me too.

To be honest I think our only option will be to disengage from the economy. Governments won't have the coin for UBI or much else cos all of it is flowing up to the billionaires and I doubt there are many that properly pay tax.

Let's imagine that AI will become cheaper and more efficient, it will not differ from humans in terms of the quality of its work, it will replace almost all intellectual workers.

You can say the same thing in the first industrial revolution: "let's imagine the machine will replace all physical labor."

But till this day, they have not been able to do that.

Nah.

Most technologies become exponentially more difficult to improve. We're climbing thar curve now with gen ai but its still so far from being usable i honestly doubt it will ever replace a significant portion of tasks comprising knowledge jobs beyond the most basic.

Like self driving cars. They were almost ready years ago but the last 5% of capability seems to still be out of reach.

Gsm AI doesn't just hallucinate sometimes. In my "knowledge job" you can load a few thousand words of reference materials into context, ask questions about it, and anything that requires even a modicum of inferred meaning is very likely incorrect. Worse, bots are amazingly good at being xlconfidently incorrect. I dont just mean not quite right on a few technicalities. I mean the opposite of correct.

My understanding is that the current state of physical robots is much worse. We can barely get a bot to drive around your house sucking up pet dander. I watched some commentary recently that made a very convincing argument that humanoid robots will never be popular for any purpose. Just imagine a bot of any form assigned to some simple task like clean a bathroom, or weed a garden - its comical.

Just like flying cars were "the future" until it became obvious that its a terrible idea, I dont think bots will replace many physical jobs.

I work with my hands so I've already got that covered. However, most of my customer base does not (which is why they call me instead of doing it themselves) so it remains to be seen if they can still afford to hire me in the future. If not, then at least I'm heavily invested to the stock market so I too get to profit from the productivity boom.

The premise of the question asks you to entertain a hypothetical situation.

Like telephone switchboard operators, travel agents, and knocker uppers before you, we will adapt. PCs themselves upended almost every industry as recently as the 80s and 90s. Even if the job is to operate AI, the job will exist and they will pay to train you to do it.

I work on a field that relies on human interaction and already has alternatives for customers that do not want human interaction.

I work in a field that requires human validation of outputs by law. I don't see that changing before I retire.