Quite an interesting article which at least verges on parody.
The thing about the automation of bureaucracy is that what it being produced doesn't a value but rather has a "redistribution effect", so more tax codes produce at best a more fine-tuned rearrangement of wealth according to the ideas of legislators. So increased productivity is meaningless.
One thing I'd add is that there areas that produce useful items but where the insertion of automation has helped much either - health care is an example I find interesting. And certainly there are places where computer-based large-scale automation has resulted in serious increases in productivity (I believe rail roads had this in the 1990s).
So question of where automation tends to fail and where it tends to succeed is a bit open - but it seems like "organizing complex, interlocked human interactions" is one place where failure is common.
The thing about the automation of bureaucracy is that what it being produced doesn't a value but rather has a "redistribution effect", so more tax codes produce at best a more fine-tuned rearrangement of wealth according to the ideas of legislators. So increased productivity is meaningless.
One thing I'd add is that there areas that produce useful items but where the insertion of automation has helped much either - health care is an example I find interesting. And certainly there are places where computer-based large-scale automation has resulted in serious increases in productivity (I believe rail roads had this in the 1990s).
So question of where automation tends to fail and where it tends to succeed is a bit open - but it seems like "organizing complex, interlocked human interactions" is one place where failure is common.