The labor market, the competitive process shouldn't pay this person a high wage. That's automation. And there shouldn't be any presumption that just automation is necessarily going to lead to much higher wages. But second, that we don't need to do just automation. We can create different future factories where humans have much greater contributions in terms of design maintenance, flexibility, social skills, creativity. If we do that, then we're going to increase wages.
Economist and author Daron Acemoglu of MIT discusses his book Power and Progress with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Acemoglu argues that the productivity and prosperity that results from innovation is not always shared widely across the population. He makes the case for the importance of regulating new technologies to ensure that the benefits of innovation are distributed equitably.