Imo, the goodness of automation is fully dependent on the security of the workers displaced by the automation process. I think there’s a tendency to assume that prioritizing the automation of jobs starting with the jobs whose conditions are worst, but in reality automation is only used to weaken workers’ bargaining power. High turnover and regular “restructuring” hides the natural cruelty of maintaining the reserve army of labor behind the abstraction of a market (which is all that markets are really good for anyway) and the capitalists get to have it both ways. They know that mass layoffs are inciting incidents for labor solidarity, so instead of replacing entire teams with machines, they bring the machines in, cut people’s hours, and let them quit one at a time over months. Or maybe they build a new factory that’s fully automated and close one that isn’t so everyone blames “China stealing our jobs”. There are so many tricks to hide the cruelty.

I think we can find some solace in the existence of bullshit jobs. The idea that there is still fat to be cut from the system in order to keep everybody employed. But who knows how long that will last as everything becomes gig work?