Besides all the larger questions of politics and automation, it really awesome to be part of a team that builds 1000 vehicles a day. Seeing them roll off the end of the line never stops being cool. In IT, your project may last for months and you only see small changes happen slowly over time. In the plant you see parts come together into a complete vehicle over the course of a day.
In IT, if a site or service is down, you know it's a problem, but in manufacturing if the line stops you can see hundreds of people just sitting there.
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People talk about automation like it's new. Automakers have been automating from the very beginning. Designing and building cars is a big job. Designing and building the machine that builds the cars is also a big job. The machine that builds the cars is made of suppliers, trucks, railroads, robots, conveyors, information systems, and yes, people.
Line workers look like people to you and me, and they certainly are people; but to the machine that builds cars they look like extremely capable but slightly inconsistent robots.