The idea of automation is to create something that will be able to complete a job or part of a job automatically without much human intervention. At one time when I was a kid the there was talk, from what I would have considered technologically ignorant adults, about "robots" that were going to take away our jobs like it was the same argument as immigrants coming to take away our jobs. It comes from a real fear that a cheaper labor source would ruin a man's employability. That may be true.
But another side of the argument is that automation for one thing can free up a laborer for a more important task. A worker on an assembly line works dutifully for years when his employer invests in machinery that eliminates the need for that worker as well as five other employees down steam on the line. This doesn't seem fair and while it does improve the productivity of the factory it doesn't come free. There is still a cost for this new labor, it did take a team of people that developed the machinery, software, upgrades and it will require someone to maintain that machinery. Now that employer had a choice to invest into the costs of machinery verses payroll. The employer could still use that loyal employee in another role that continues to strengthens the business but typically those unprepared workers are swept aside and the search starts for skilled labor in this high tech new world.
In some areas the cost of labor can be cheaper than the investment of expensive machinery. That is something that every business has to weigh out. I've seen video from Chinese factories where there is a lot of machinery but laborers doing tasks in key part of the assembly line that could be replaced by machinery because the labor is cheap and a human in those positions is good enough. A person can be a quick, easy and flexible component to get the job done. Use of a machine may take time to get it setup in place and tuned correctly before it can do the job effectively.
That was all real world hypothetical to paint the idea of automation before I shift to talking about the same thing in other areas like computing. I always heard the example of taking a repetitive task and simplifying by creating a program or script to repeat it for you. This was always difficult for me to accept because I knew about programing and one of the beautiful things about computer programs is the end result can be different and not repeatable. The example of manufacturing is repetitive, or does it have to be? Car manufacturers allow for some customization such as the color of the car, so not every car is built the same. They use a lot of automation in a process that includes data processing and decision making.
Think more like a printer. A printer can print on paper. I send a document to my printer and can tell it to print multiple copies of that document. Or I could send multiple unique documents to print out sequentially. And each document can be further unique by using different size, type or color paper. Each document printed is automatically being created by the printer but each page is a separate product of that printer physically created without human intervention until it is complete and need to be removed from the printer output. It does not require a human to write each letter of the document on the paper. Before the printing press, documents were duplicated by one man writing by hand the words another already put on paper, it required a lot of work until better duplication methods came along.
When I was a kid, before my family bought our first computer, my dad had a typewriter. It was a novel idea but I had problems using it. I tried using it a few times but it was painful for me to use. If I made one mistake the whole page was ruined and had to start over. My thoughts had to be well thought out before I could start typing. That meant writing everything on paper by hand first, make all correction and then be meticulous printing that to paper. It was too much work. It was stupid.
When we got our first computer I realized that we could type and edit a document in the computer's memory before sending to a printer was so much like it should be it was genius. Or you could just save it to a file, the printer wasn't even needed! That was pre-internet for my family but I made the connection with the flexibility of a computer. Also in that moment is an idea of automation to reduce steps and increase productivity. Now we take it for granted to send a quick email instead of digging out the old clunky typewriter from the attic to send a letter that should arrive to the recipient in a few days.
Automation is something that continues to change our environment. So what I say is not to consider using automation to merely reduce costs and increase profits for a few but lets use automation as a way to produce more, bigger and better so we make ourselves stronger as a community.