@Doomroar we have to see back to the ethics class scene in the beginning of this chapter, sensei said, “when humans achieve the desired freedom, they will get overwhelmed by the weight of freedom”
You are right, in this modern day when human labors is replaced by automation, the meaning of “labor” will be shifted as well, but still humans are bound to be labors. If we look at the richest people who do not need to be “labors” to get their necessities, we can see that they are doing something to kill their leisure time, it can be gardening, painting, dancing, reading, gambling, anything, their hobbies became necessities to kill the “weight of freedom” they got from automation and wealth, and they are striving for them, in other word, they became “labors” for killing their leisure times
For example, in my country, the best poker athletes are all old rich people, and they are really good at it, winning many medals for my country in many international games (Asian games, Sea games, etc), do they need to be athletes to earn money? No. Playing poker is just their hobby, but because they don’t have to be “labors” to earn money, they put their effort in playing poker, and of course they practice so hard to earn medals. That “practice so hard” brought those old rich people to become “labors” to earn achievements
And, though the automation dismissed human labor power, but humans are beings who strive for something better, in this case, we want to have “more automation”, and the idea to reach that “more autimaton” won’t come out of nowhere through automation. So, who should think about how to invent the higher level of automation? Humans. We may be liberated from physical labors with automation, but humans always be labors of thoughts (I don’t know the term is right or wrong, but i hope you get i meant). As in this chapter, the student liked online games (which is a form of automation), but our sensei suggested him to become game maker, in the other words, labor
And honestly this chapter is related to the old chapter (previous generation) about a male student who had nothing to do and became restless, similar to the student in this chapter who became restless because he got “liberated” from his online game... they both were overwhelmed by the weight of freedom and looked for something to do, to become labors