I wish the author had had the courage of their convictions to extend the analogy all the way to the glue factory. It’s what we are all thinking.
The AI people point to post 1950s style employment and say 'people recovered after industrial advance' and ignore the 1880s through the 1940s. We actually have zero idea if the buggy whip manufacturer ever recovered or just lasted a year in skid row before giving up completely, or lived through the 2 world wars spurred by mechanisation.
I did a deep research into the decline of horses and it was consistent with fewer births, not mass slaughter. The US Department of Agriculture has great records during this time, though they’re not fully digitized.