[colemannugent]

I don't think that increased automation will necessarily kill jobs. When Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin that could triple the labor of a slave, and the number of slaves increased keep the machines fed.

For a more modern analogy, AWS enables one engineer to deploy machines at let's say 100 times the speed of an engineer doing it all manually. If you business scales with the number of deployed machines, each additional engineer adds significant value to your business until you reach a point where adding another engineer does not justify the salary you would pay her.

The issue then is now training engineers to use AWS. Your business could justify bearing this cost if the cost of training does not outweigh the additional value.

[stefie10]

I think that's definitely true, in terms of net jobs. (But probably not always true.) However it will lead to disruption - the old jobs won't be the same as the new jobs. This disruption is potentially harmful to the people doing the old jobs. Additionally, most of the benefit of the cotton gin went to the slave owners, not the slaves, even though the slaves still had jobs. Hopefully we can do better this time!