Automation would increase productivity and replace workers in manual jobs, so we wouldn't have to work as much.

Here we are in 2024 and we're still working at least eight hours a day. We're actually afraid of automation because it'll take away our opportunity to work eight hours a day so we don't starve.

Productivity has also increased exponentially (note: may not actually be exponential, just using the word as a figure of speech, but a math nerd can correct my use of scale here if they want), but has the average worker benefitted as much as they should have? Of course not