I went through this Ford engine plant about three years ago, when they first opened it.

There are acres and acres of machines, and here and there you will find a worker standing at a master switchboard, just watching, green and yellow lights blinking off and on, which tell the worker what is happening in the machine.

One of the management people, with a slightly gleeful tone in his voice said to me, “How are you going to collect union dues from all these machines?”

And I replied, “You know, that is not what’s bothering me. I’m troubled by the problem of how to sell automobiles to these machines

- [Walter Reuther, Nov. 1956](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/11/16/robots-buy-cars)