"Ultimately, technology frees us from one task so we can focus on another. Boudreaux again, “As was true 200 years ago, the falling costs of satisfying some wants (such as those for food and clothing) enable us to turn our attention to satisfying other wants, many of which today were unimaginable to our 19th-century ancestors.”" My professor told us that you can look things other way around: Automation is not destroying jobs, it's just allowing single person to produce more. Maintenance free factory is still a far fetched dream. At some point it's not just "more" as a quantity, we have advanced in complexity too. Than one guy spent years to build a toaster from scratch, imagine how hard it would be to produce a smart-phone without automation? You might think that people doing new stuff would be paid less? What is most important? Food. Are farmers rich? No. Just doing something important matters less and less, being able to replicate it to lots of people matters more and more.