I'm not at all assuming all technological progress is an unadulterated good - in fact, nothing is, everything would have a downside if it has an upside. All I'm saying is it's still bound to happen and we can do nothing about it.

It's not the first time that 'entire classes of skilled jobs' have been eliminated. It's the natural side effect of automation and has happened with every generation of new products. Industry automation might have taken millions of jobs away so far to give us better products faster. Tomorrow my job as a usual developer might be gone to these AI tools (though it's a far fetched thought), and I have to be prepared for it, and re-skill/up-skill myself if I ever sense that day is about to arrive.