Half the work people do can be automated: McKinsey.

This is using currently-existing technology. No innovation or invention required.

I agree, by the way. The other day I drafted a post that I got tired of writing that noted that I could with my own technical skills automate out of existence 50% of the jobs at my current workplace given enough time. With a team of programmers and a year, it’d probably be closer to 90%. (The study looked at automatable tasks at a more granular level.)

Why this does not occur in general (not comfortable discussing the specifics of my own workplace in this forum) I don’t feel like going into detail exploring, but the reasons are an amalgam of bureaucratic inertia, domain protection, financial and other blockers.

Note that here I am not assaying the merits or demerits of automation, but just stating that it is easily possible. Expect to see a whole lot more of it as older managers leave the work force.