The economy has a lot of feedback which makes it hard to model. But the unemployment problem from automation is not the result of automation itself. Generally, long term, automation may eliminate jobs, but that's because it's cheaper. This means savings for the rest of the economy, so other things become cheaper, to varying degrees. Some number of things pass an affordability threshold, and become more popular, leading to some booming sectors, which need people, and employment rises to a stable level again.
The two main problems are: Short term, the interim change isn't good for those unemployed - a big disruption until replacement employment is available. And the rich and powerful changing the system to benefit themselves over the rest, which is independent of the automation, but they can certainly use it for leverage. It's the system changing for the rich that's the main cause of the income disparity and wage stagnation lately.
Basically, feudalism is inherent in human activity (based on ratio of people who's desire is productive work vs. wealth accumulation, the accumulators spend more time on it), unless some system of governance modifies it to benefit more people (usually government, but could be consumer activism, unions, the press, violent mobs, or just smart rich people who know better).
When technology changes quickly, a lot of short term unemployment disruptions can build up into what seems to be a long term problem. Government can (and should) help with that too, but it's not yet clear that it'll become a long term problem.