It does grow bigger, assuming that the education level of workers is increasing. This is one of the founding tenets of Scandinavian social democracy. Eventually society will expect every citizen to go to at least college. This becomes more or less tenable with tuition-free higher education.

> Did the farmer kick the ladder for the hunter-gatherer?

looks around

Certainly seems that way.

How many tribes, peoples, and nations no longer exist because they had a less efficient means of production than their neighbors?

The farmer replaced the hunter gatherer but not with a robot, the work was still done by humans, and in fact they continued to hunt. The industrial revolution too, automated parts of labor but didn’t take the human out of the equation. This is a different situation though, it’s not equatable in the same sense. The problem with this type of automation is that the early bird will inadvertently kick the ladder; hopefully won’t turn into a feudal like society where the lower class entertains because this, as it may sound decent, is in fact a power imbalance that could easily turn into abuse. History shows us time and time again power patterns. And we should not be only hopeful it will not turn into that, we should actively make sure it won’t. In my honest opinion.

Well, the automated farmer certainly kicked the ladder for everyone else.

Try and start a farm now, you can't compete without serious investment.

The high tech farms will send their overabundant produce 2000 miles and still undercut you, while profiting.

It's impressive, really, but it does put many local farms and would be farmers (lots of land, no other skills/ideas) out of a job.