They’ll never admit it in public, but many of your bosses want machines to replace you as soon as possible….

[I]n private settings, including meetings with the leaders of the many consulting and technology firms whose pop-up storefronts line the Davos Promenade, these executives tell a different story: They are racing to automate their own work forces to stay ahead of the competition, with little regard for the impact on workers.

All over the world, executives are spending billions of dollars to transform their businesses into lean, digitized, highly automated operations. They crave the fat profit margins automation can deliver, and they see A.I. as a golden ticket to savings, perhaps by letting them whittle departments with thousands of workers down to just a few dozen….

In Davos, executives tend to speak about automation as a natural phenomenon over which they have no control, like hurricanes or heat waves. They claim that if they don’t automate jobs as quickly as possible, their competitors will.

As to who will buy the products of their operations once all the workers are gone…well, that doesn't seem to occur to any of them.

If only there had been a philosopher and economist who had examined this phenomenon.

UPDATE:  Reader Jeff Rice (Northwestern) shares this funny anecdote:

Charles Wilson, president of GM was walking through an auto plant with Walter Reuther proudly showing off the first robotic arm working the assembly line.  Wilson says to Reuther, “try organizing robots” to which Walter replies, “try selling cars to robots”.