Indeed, productivity growth (the rate of automation) is fairly low now. A lot of the big stories about automation killing jobs started popping up after the fina

Indeed, productivity growth (the rate of automation) is fairly low now. A lot of the big stories about automation killing jobs started popping up after the financial crisis, ignoring the actual reasons for the job loss (the financial crisis that had just devastated the global economy) in order to push a particular viewpoint. Though it was claimed that automation had permanently destroyed certain jobs and was about to destroy many more (and that the rate that this was going to happen was about dramatically), labor force participation has actually been going up since then. This is starting to remind me of peak oil, where it's become an article of faith among some people that there's a disaster right around the corner, and no amount of failed predictions or facts pointing to the contrary are going to convince them otherwise.