You seem to be ignoring the current wave of automation, and focusing on the one that started with the industrial revolution. Automation used to provide muscle, and thus replace manufacturing. Nowadays it starts to provide <i>brains</i>, which makes it replace services. As it continues, where will the human labour go?<p>The number of jobs was highly correlated to the size of population <i>so far</i>, but we already see the rise of bullshit jobs, that serve each other in closed loops, providing no real benefit except of wasting resources to give some people something to do. It&#x27;s not as obvious as ordering people one day to dig up a hole and the next day to fill it up again, but e.g. a lifecycle of a leaflet - from commissioning, designing and printing it, to delivery, giving it to people and having it end up in a thrash can, seems really similar.