[echelon]

Is it?

Isn't there much more money in automating business processes than in answering consumer questions (sans ads)?

Automating software development has to be a multi-trillion dollar market. And that doesn't account for future growth.

[bluGill]

maybe. Software is big, but it is only a tiny percentage of the ecconomy. they need to help a lot more than software to justify their datacenter investments. even if we add all engineering that isn't a large percentage. How can they help insurance agents (or eliminate - I don't care either way), plumbers, zoo keepers, and every other job in my city? Some might be they can't - but if they can is a question worth asking.