It's not sexy talking about how we have the potential to put millions of Americans out of jobs, and would rather handwave the discussion with a "Oh they said the same thing during the industrial revolution."
If we had the resources to give 500,000 people a living wage, a home, health care, in exchange for performing a completely meaningless task then that would be a pretty good deal (that many would also be happy to take).
So no, it is not better to give people resources for performing a completely meaningless task. If the task were completely meaningless then we could provide them the same resources without requiring the labor. Neo-Luddites arguing against driverless cars are fighting the wrong thing. Their fight should be distribution of wealth created, not against innovation that increases productivity and makes our lives collectively easier.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
Basically, it's foolish to have people do unnecessary work because in doing so you have squandered time and resources that could have been spent creating additional value.
Why don't we just give them the money and care instead? Then they can actually do something useful with their time.