datasage

On your IKEA example, the question is how furniture was produced and sold before IKEA existed and how it is build and sold now.

There are other furniture makers who are out of business because they cannot match the efficiency of IKEA. The argument is that people put out of work because of IKEA is greater than the number of people hired by IKEA. (Provided that the market size does not change)

I think the secretaries were inherently aware that one of their roles was being replaced and thus resisted it.

Those who's jobs rely on inefficiency are not incentivized to improve efficiency.

That may be true initially. While adoption is low, the overhead labor costs per unit are relatively high. But even here, as you scale out, your overhead costs per unit get much lower. Eventually the labor cost to build one robotic arm will be less than labor cost replaced by the robotic arm.

If this doesn't happen, then its not more efficient.