At least at the moment, the jobs we're talking about (e.g. drive-through order-taker) aren't meaningful entry into a career path — they're jobs people take befo

At least at the moment, the jobs we're talking about (e.g. drive-through order-taker) aren't meaningful entry into a career path — they're jobs people take before they have a career path, or on a largely short-term basis. There are exceptions, but there are still going to be plenty of restaurant jobs for a while. We're still in a shortage of labor on that end of the job market. But also, the number of remaining roles isn't fixed. Jobs exist (at least in the private sector) because they create more value than they cost to fill, and we're always finding new and expanded ways for people to create more value. Saving resources through automation just means we can redirect that value creation somewhere else. Ultimately this is how economies grow and the world becomes wealthier over time; we increase the value of people's time because there's so much competition for it, to the point where we can then more cheaply automate some or part of the job. If the supply of labor gets too large for the uses we can find for it, prices for labor fall, and the relative cost of automation is increased.