Audio mastering in modern times has been watered down to two things and these are:
- Brighter is ALWAYS better.
- Louder is ALWAYS better.
And with that type of mindset, the moral of the story is ML (i.e. machine learning) can go beyond human intelligence and can be taught to do this efficiently hence automated mastering will assure consistency and reproducibility as the algorithms become more and more advanced.
Eventually, mastering engineers will be put out of business by such services followed by mixing engineers (i.e. automated audio mixing with minimal or no human involvement at all), and of course, machine learning will come for music producers, songwriters then as the final nail on the coffin it will come for record label employees.
When it's all said and done it's the investors who stand to benefit a LOT, I mean a LOT than any other period in music business history.
Why? Because human beings are so expensive and less productive—you can't in most places legally get them to grind 100 hours a week (even if you allow them to piss in bottles) compared to a machine/program that doesn't need to take breaks or ask to go on holidays neither does it expect a bonus and all the other work-related benefits! All it needs are regularly scheduled updates—nothing more and nothing less.
N.B. companies don't exist primarily for the purpose of providing jobs. Their purpose is to provide a free market with a product or service. In other words, jobs help them reach their goals although this isn't a priority.
I guess this is arguably why some billionaires constantly advocate for population control—they sure know what's coming (i.e. perhaps 500 million people on earth) since if current jobs/careers become widely automated what then will happen to billions of people except chaos and unending daily protests?
In other words, I suppose to them a reduction of population is much more manageable on universal basic income than billions of people doing nothing but bonking each other every week whilst popping more babies year after year.
The offspring won't find work when they become adults, still.