I know you are being hyperbolic, but, basically, every word of this is false- deeply untrue common knowledge.
Unskilled labor is very cheap, totally interchangeable and cost competitive with anything. Robotics were used to replace unskilled labor in manufacturing mostly as a result of labor shortages.
The real impact of automation and robotics has been to eliminate skilled routine work and compress middle management. You cannot understand the evolution of the US economy over the last forty years but especially since 2002 without internalizing that reality. AI will accelerate that trend and drive It upwards into higher levels of skill.
No- again, this is an example of being programmed against your own interest. Your friend is paid more than a pediatrician because he plays an essential role in a value chain that creates more economic value than a pediatrician or state attorney.
His share of productivity has risen as productivity increased and fewer humans were needed on the line. He’s being paid not for turning screws but for the institutional understanding to keep a hugely lucrative value chain going and get it back on-line if the routine breaks for some reason.
He’s never been more valuable. And because he’s part of a collective seller of skilled labor that can negotiate as an equal with a single collective buyer of labor,* he gets paid like it.
That’s not a racket, that’s equality- men died for it.
* any incorporated business is, fundamentally, a collective buying entity of organized investors and entrepreneurs who negotiate the price of labor and goods as a single entity.