Technological progress has frequently resulted in changes in the nature of work, sometimes affecting skilled workers more and sometimes affecting unskilled workers more. But whichever categories of worker were affected, such changes have almost universally been to the benefit of workers of all skill levels. Let's consider two or three professions of the past.

Take the "tanner." Before technology transformed the nature of such work, Wikipedia tells us that tanning "was considered a noxious or 'odoriferous trade' and relegated to the outskirts of town, amongst the poor… The ancient tanner might use his bare feet to knead the skins in dung water, and the kneading could last two or three hours."