They're not talking about automated companies. They're talking about distributed companies. That's entirely different. This is the micropayment dream, again - everything is making tiny micropayments to everything else. I knew some of that crowd back when Xanadu was a thing. (Xanadu was Ted Nelson's thing, a predecessor of the World Wide Web. Everything is pay per view in Xanadu.) They were all fanatical libertarians.

Somebody read "Atlas Shrugged" too many times. (Part 3 of the movie is out, and in Redbox, if anybody cares. "The weak cinematic trilogy derived from Ayn Rand's 1957 screed-cum-novel limps to its merciful end." - Variety)