&quot;The productivity boost we could get just by eliminating people manually copying and pasting (or, dear god, re-typing) things from one spreadsheet to another would be enormous, let alone other applications.&quot;<p>You do realise that:<p>a) Historically working hours have not decreased with an increase in productivity, and<p>b) The notion of a basic income, and the concept that not everyone <i>needs</i> to work is regarded with extreme suspicion (in the US anyway)?<p>All those people who are copying and pasting things are doing a certain job. You can eliminate those jobs with a single script, but I&#x27;m not so sure doing this en masse would be a positive thing without making a parallel effort to reduce work hours for everyone and making a push for basic income.