[JumpCrisscross]

> Are they saying that higher a job pays, the more likely it is to get automated?

Yes. "Simple economic theory predicts that, all else equal, employers are more eager to automate jobs with higher pay and more workers. So these two factors should predict job automation. And we do in fact see such effects in Table 3, though more consistently for pay than employment."

> what does 'employment' refer to exactly?

Number of people employed.

[Nextgrid]

For automation to make sense from a business point of view the cost of developing & running the automation should be less than the cost of doing the work manually over an equivalent timeframe.

This is why for example there are a lot of bullshit office jobs that can be automated fairly easily but will not be because there's plenty of cheap labour to do it manually (for cheaper than what developing & maintaining the automation would cost) and it also earns them PR points about "creating" jobs.

[foogazi]

No one will automate for automations sake - businesses choose how to deploy capital to improve efficiency, which can be achieved through scale or going after the largest cost

[082349872349872]

In the mid-twentieth century (IIRC) there was a "paradox" observed that the US was capital-rich but its exports were labour-intensive. Is this situation still true?