You're looking at it in terms of capability, instead of ROI. CFO/COOs typically aren't investing in the highest-capability automation, because that's the most

You're looking at it in terms of capability, instead of ROI. CFO/COOs typically aren't investing in the highest-capability automation, because that's the most capital-expensive automation. It's far cheaper and easier to buy another crane or loader, driven by a person, than a fully autonomous system. So given the two options, they'll usually pick the former (because it has quicker ROI). There are some exceptions, if a large proportion of the work is high-skilled, e.g. pharmacy, but with dockworkers we're probably talking about the lowest-skilled jobs being eliminated first.