I think you have hit the nail on the head. Maybe it is only paranoia, but over the course of my career I have seen an increased treatment of the employee like

I think you have hit the nail on the head. Maybe it is only paranoia, but over the course of my career I have seen an increased treatment of the employee like chattel. The rights of employees have eroded, almost by choice, through social media, smart phones, monitoring technology. I, personally, had had enough. I decided to remove myself from that environment. I believed that it was dehumanizing and degrading. I started working remotely on contracts. That worked pretty well for a while. But I started working for one company where slowly they wanted me to become more and more like one of their employees and less of an independent contractor. In addition to the work covered by the contract, I was asked to help on other projects or with interviewing. Initially I didn't mind because I wanted to help. After a while I realized what was happening and that is what prompted me to create my own company to work through and to be paid for the end result rather than the time spent on the result. With respect to the article, there are some things that I think you have to accept as an employee. You probably have signed away the rights to the IP you create at your place of employment. After all, you probably did it on company time with company equipment. But ultimately that is the agreement you entered into so you cannot turn around after the fact and complain. However, my sympathy lies with the person that automates their work rather than the employer. I think that the ethical problem is interesting. Recently I watched the Crash Course on "meta ethics" and the problem they considered was a burglar who intended to steal from a little, old lady but inadvertently saved her life instead. And the question is, 'was the burglar good or bad?' I think there is a parallel to the issue of automating your job. I am no philosopher, but I think this is an interesting question.