Interesting video by the Author of “Learning by Doing: The Real Connection between Innovation, Wages, and Wealth“, which largely comes down to “it’s complicated”. Sometimes automation replaces jobs, but sometimes it increases jobs, especially when there was pent up demand.

ATMs actually increased the number of bank teller jobs, because it led to needing less people needed per branch, and banks openned up new branches to meet pent up demand. It’s also why manufacturing jobs are never coming back, we’ve met the demand on consumption, and most industries making goods are in the optimizing phase.

What’s also really interesting is the idea that new skills are always undervalued, because there is no reliable basis to understand how valuable they are. The transition from typesetting to digital publishing was a huge skill shift, but was pretty stagnant on wages.