Trust me a fair bit of boomers and the generation before lost jobs to computer automation in the 1990s through the 2000s. And they used pretty much the same justification, every bit of work, take for example designing something like a machine spare that was earlier done through painstaking process of bringing the thing to life from the meticulous work on the drafting board till machining was now in the domain of computers.
In India alone, banking jobs were considered those commanding tremendous prestige and income potential, got automated through computers. Tax consultants, accountants, postal services etc etc. The list is endless.
AI is some what like that for us in this generation.