For years economists and others have worshiped the false god of productivity. What we are seeing is productivity’s end game. Karl Marx might have written on this.
http://shanfaraa.com/2012/08/marxism-and-robots/
Productivity increase is the natural and inevitable result of the operation of the free market. Those operations which do not keep up with the rate of increase disappear.
So if we are agreed that the inevitable result of automation in a free market is growing structural unemployment, the questions becomes what, if anything, to do about it? And I don’t see any free market mechanism that will handle it. The State would have to get involved.
I think this is a major reason conservatives don’t like to discuss the issue. Quite possibly 200+ years of the market being a mechanism for the improvement of human well-being is approaching its end. At that point do you abandon faith in the market, or just accept its destruction of your society?