“Automation & The Cotton Gin” @johnolilly https://news.greylock.com/automation-the-cotton-gin-cc12e33dca39

The gin could process cotton so efficiently that more cotton goods could be produced, and it turned out that there was massive latent demand for cotton goods. So while the robots did indeed reduce the reliance on slaves to do the finishing work, they also increased demand for cotton, which resulted in many more cotton fields, and many more slaves to tend them.