Even if we define the start automation as the industrial revolution, if automation would (mostly) remove "interesting" jobs and compensate with "pointless" jobs, by now, all the jobs would be "pointless"; but they very evidently aren't.

The problem is, as I wrote, that some people think we're a special period in history (most of the times, based on an ambiguos interpretation of the term "robot"), while there have been significant revolutions for a long time (possibly, forever). There's nothing different under the sun (on the whole timescale).