[bradjohnson]

Most automation of physical jobs didn't happen by dropping a robot into the same situation as a human, but by adapting the environment for automation. I think the essay spends too much time positing that since most times robots can't be dropped into existing situations, there is no threat of automation for these industries. That might be true for things that can't be changed rapidly (such as how plumbing works in residential housing built over the last hundred years), but for many things it is reasonable to expect capitalists to shift the environment in which that job is done to allow for scalable automation.

E.g. Grocery store cashiers haven't been replaced by humanoid robots, but they have been significantly offset by computers and scales and by making the customer do the manual steps of scanning and bagging via self-checkout.