No, the sense of unease comes from people fearing for their livelihood, given that it looks like that their raison d'être is about to be revoked by some AI automating their career away.
A point you so aptly summarized with: > Vast swathes of the human economy are just scaffolding to support the rest: humans reproducing to keep the optimization machine going.
The unease is, imo, only so palpable however, because every stakeholder that stands from profiting from such a development - i.e. capital owners - refuse to describe it as what the development really is.
Publicly advertising AI as "we're basicially moonshotting the largest job automation operation ever attempted, so 20-30% of you will be out of a job in the next 15 years" would probably cause unrest - and rightly so!
> What else can you do anyway?
Communism - and ya hate to see it (as an american)!
The means of production becoming dead-simple to use, that's a prelude for the proletariat being able to seize them.
On a more serious note, you can always protest, and escalate, which I'm hoping will happen.