I don't get the "back in my grandpappy's day the steam engines left and we still survivded" notion that automation is not killing jobs. Most everybody was employable back in the 1820s. Simply because of the fact that there was no automation. Train took your horse carriage job? Go work in the fields.

If all department stores adopted automated cashiers, the cashier as a retail option as we know it is dead. Killed.

If all farms adopt tractors and automatic harvesting machines, the crop picker option as we know it is dead. Killed.

Etc. Etc.

There will come a time when we can conceive of a new task to be completed, while simultaneously sketching up the automatic machine to complete the task.

In fact, this job-killing-automation already exists in the form of the latest and greatest production lines. They were not built to be filled with workers, only product.