You are correct that automation would help out a lot technically, at least in some science fields.
There are two cultural issues, though:
1) Automation won't be used in many cases since automation is not how the advisors did things when they got their PhD. They usually don't care if the student has a better idea for how to do things than theirs, even (especially) if the student is technically correct.
2) Even in cases where they do automate some procedure and save a lot of labor, the grad student is simply expected to use that time to do that much more new / additional work.
There are two cultural issues, though:
1) Automation won't be used in many cases since automation is not how the advisors did things when they got their PhD. They usually don't care if the student has a better idea for how to do things than theirs, even (especially) if the student is technically correct.
2) Even in cases where they do automate some procedure and save a lot of labor, the grad student is simply expected to use that time to do that much more new / additional work.