Comment by int_19h

Automation is a form of capital. In an economic system that has conditions for a runaway positive feedback loop of accumulation of capital, in the long term, it benefits primarily those who own the capital. Specifically, it allows them to collect more economic rent from it, and share less with the rest.

Taken to its logical conclusion, when everything is automated, the people who own the automation don't actually need the rest of the population at all - it becomes redundant. Of course, the "redundant" population might have different ideas about itself...