The future

After watching Caprica the other night I had an interesting thought.  What would happen if we automated processes so much that things became almost ridiculously cheap.  What if through technological advancement we were able to create many things without much human interaction.  What would humans do without the need to work?  What would happen if we were given a blank check that would give us the freedom to pursue whatever we wanted?  I would like to think that there would be a sizable chunk of people who would work toward the betterment of human kind.  I would hope that we as a race would work toward moving toward the stars and expanding the human race across them.  On the other hand I know people and there would still be a sizable chunk of people who would only want to lay about and to do destructive things.  Finally is the thought that there are people out there who would rather keep others under their control and would only use the technology to improve their hold on the rest of civilization.