I worked as an engineer at a V8 engine plant a few years ago. We had robots doing virtually all of the non-skilled labor in the entire plant and some of the skilled labor, too (milling raw steel casts, for example). A person comes with sick days, health costs, children, complaints, bathroom/lunch breaks and a union rep, just to name a few things. Each of these is indispensable for a worker, but non-existent to a machine. Additionally, companies are strongly incentivized to go robotic because many capital upgrades are partially or fully tax deductible (since, ironically, they "create jobs" for the producers of the capital acquisition). Companies don't exist to make products; they exist to make money. As such, tax policy is not just the best way, but the only way to change this trend.