As I recall it, the claim was that people would become less valuable, not that they would necessarily work less. The goal is to reduce the cost of hiring, not to give people freedom.

The value proposition for automation and industrialization is always along the lines that, as unskilled workers lose jobs and are displaced by machinery, more jobs will be created for skilled workers to design, supervise, and maintain that machinery.

So if you install kiosks at McDonald's and 3 cashiers lose their jobs, you've created 9 jobs in the R&D and maintenance industries for techies to manufacture and support those kiosks. Win/win, right?

We will work more and more, endlessly, until we render ourselves useless through our own efforts. That is the quest.

Who claimed that?

Jevons paradox