Back in the day I worked for financial traders on early automated trading systems, and I think your summary is fantastically poor.<p>First, people have long had questions about the societal effects and costs of trading, even when humans did it. Second, the automation of trading isn&#x27;t merely replicating what humans do at a lower cost. I&#x27;d call it a fundamentally different activity. Third, one of the things that has become more and more attenuated is any sense of moral responsibility. Traders were never known for attacks of the warm fuzzies, but algorithms not only don&#x27;t give a shit about how the affect humans, they can&#x27;t. And fourth, instead of saving everybody money, finance eats up an ever-increasing share of the economy, and I think automation is part of that.<p>Automation isn&#x27;t universally good. Sometimes it makes things better, sometimes worse. As technologists our job isn&#x27;t just to automate everything. It&#x27;s to use our professional skills and experience to improve the world, to improve human lives.