Automating the workers away is always to goal. But the irony is that automation makes the few humans that are left in the loop more important than before. So it is possible to end up in a situation where 1000s of easily replaceable employees were replaced by 10s of very difficult to replace employees and very complex system. So all in all it can be that even 10x productivity increase per employee might not be enough to justify the costs overall.

So I guess we have to see this case by case as in manufacturing and industries.