When a machine replaces the work of a man, that man (who had the ingenuity to create a machine, say a fishnet, and take a risk) can make his products to you a lot cheaper than it otherwise would be if he had to hire tons of laborers. That is where you benefit. When the price of a car becomes reachable all of a sudden, or a tv, or plumbing, or common items like socks are $5 and not $100. The standard of living should rise through automation and increase productivity. Instead everyone is fighting for higher wages, higher protection, weaker currencies... and ever-rising prices across the board.
We have to support a ravenous State that gives little in return but barriers to industry and inflation (in education and healthcare most visibly). The point is that everything should be cheaper than it is. Yet we're told deflation is such a great evil. We work but we're not productive. All these visions of the leisurely future in the article were during in the boom of capitalism, when the State really was small and unobtrusive, and the standard of living absolutely surged. It's a pity that the US has not embraced these core values in time of recession but have gone the opposite way in directing the economy. Creating jobs is not the goal. You could hire one guy to dig a hole and one to fill it and you wouldn't be any better for it. All slaves had jobs. The goal is to create efficiency, productivity, and encourage entrepreneurship and profit, for they are incentives to best serve customers. You could name too many ways that government make everyday product more expensive to 'protect' and cater to smaller segments of society.