I feel like this story was also run in 1920 with the invention of the steam-shovel. There was once a time when ditches were dug by hand, and the steam-shovel displaced thousands of jobs.
This was a major fear at the time -- look at some of the popular literature that's survived: The story of John Henry ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Henry_(folklore) ) is nothing more than a fight between man and machine.
Technology always displaces labor. There might be some new or interesting reason why this time is different, but the concept is not new.
As a society, weather we consciously realize it or not, we use progress not as a way to work less but to think less. Example: the expiry dates on milk and stuff. Instead of letting people decide for themselves when the product goes bad we tell them the exact date that it goes bad. More quick examples? Here: Calculators, Fancy medical instruments, air guitars, spell checkers etc. All of these deaden our sense of observation and awareness and dull our minds.
So we have a choice: Do we make an effort to train our brains our do we let our technology do all the thinking for us? Well, why go through all the effort to train our brains when we don't have to?
What requires more thought, farming or computer programming? coal mining or accounting? I would argue that today we engage our minds more than any other society before us.
This was a major fear at the time -- look at some of the popular literature that's survived: The story of John Henry ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Henry_(folklore) ) is nothing more than a fight between man and machine.
Technology always displaces labor. There might be some new or interesting reason why this time is different, but the concept is not new.