Necessity; The Mother of Invention
James Belich, from Oxford University, says that the decreased Labor force provided the necessary motivation for the creation of labor saving devices. He cites the example that up until the 15th century scribes had to manually copy works but as the price of labor increased this became infeasible and from this necessity Gutenberg's printing press was born.
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Labor Saving Machines
This section of the documentary draws a connection between the switch from an overabundance of labor to a need for labor saving devices and the emergence of the printing press and the mill.
Significance
Labor saving machines were paramount to the abundance of food and accessibility of information that lead to the renaissance.