I love to automate actions so I don't have to trudge through the sludge.
Strangely enough, in a time where many humans in technologically advanced societies struggle to deal with info-overload, there are those who frown on automation as a type of "cheating". There are so many burdens, why self-handicap?
That's only a sliver of the story. Like many things, the actuality comes down to intended achievement. Let me give you an example: I was recently looking for tracks by dubstep celebrity Skream. In this thread, he gets called out as a poseur for using a readymade preset from a Native Instruments soft synth. That preset happens to arpeggiate (if you're not familiar, you hold down keys and it plays notes for you), so it's a kind of compound automation.
I disagree with automation being frowned on here. Yes, I think it's lazy to stack loops and call that the end. But it's also the stepping stones many musicians have to more advanced mastery (hello Garage Band), and even if the loops or other sounds are presets, there are loads of people who've never heard them before. So in their minds, it's still all fresh. Most folk can't name the type of guitar amp used on a hit song, or differentiate between drum machines. But in a nod to the "curse of the knowing", these acolytes enjoy the music, and while I wholeheartedly encouraging sharing trivia and enlightening, I disapprove of irrational limitations.
Lest you think I am getting off-base about the original topic, I'll connect: because it is so inextricably linked to tools, automation frees us up to move onto things which can't yet be automated. Automation is augmentation, a booster rocket for our skills. Automation takes us higher so we can ascend even further — witness Jordan Rudess, whose virtuoso chops can't be duplicated by a machine. Someday, they may be, but by then, I'm willing to reckon he will have moved forward to something even more exceptional.
And that's why I don't fear machines killing creativity. For people who were already going to be lazy anyway, they expose and reinforce that fact. But for the earnest madmen and madwomen who love to experiment and twist the comfortable into something wholly refreshing — before it, too, gets sold out (it's inevitable) — I salute dispersing with manual labor.
To reinforce: automation is about not dealing with what you've already learned. You've done it 100 times, fine — now make it run by itself so you can get on with more intriguing pursuits.