The "automation" that occurred in the Industrial Revolution was the standardization of process-- especially in regard to the use of capital-intensive machines t

The "automation" that occurred in the Industrial Revolution was the standardization of process-- especially in regard to the use of capital-intensive machines that required a skilled workforce-- but those processes still required humans as the main actors, since robots and computers hadn't been invented yet. This led to a Jevons Paradox-- increased efficiency in the use of X, where X is human labor, led to the increased use of X. In 1944, full human employment was possible in the United States, for pretty much the last time. We're in the midst of another Jevons "paradox", but in this case, X is abstract computational (and mechanical, in the form of robots) power. So computers are becoming more powerful and prolific, replacing human labor. The result is that only people who are smart enough to understand the new regime can contribute in a sustainably economically valuable way; the rest will see the market value of their labor approach zero.