MIT's motto is mens et manus: mind and hand. These are, basically, the two primary attributes of human labor. They're the reason almost anyone gets hired to do anything. Our brains and our opposable thumbs are what set us ahead of the animal kingdom.

The industrial revolution first attempted to replace our hands. But the labor that was displaced had places to go: into smaller-scale manual work, where mass-production machinery was too expensive, and into knowledge work.

Now the AI is coming for knowledge work, and robots are getting better at small-scale work. We're not at that point yet, but looking down the road I'm not sure there will really be anything competitive left flesh-and-blood humans can offer to an employer.

The only exceptions I can think of are, maybe, athletics, live music performances, and escort services. But with only a few wealthy people as customers, I don't think there will be many job opportunities even in those fields. And I'm not sure that robots won't come for those too.

I guess the people in Wall-E didn't really seem unhappy so perhaps you're right. My gut instinct though, is that there is a qualitative difference in the level of abundance and concentration of wealth, power, and influence we have today that needs to be taken seriously on its merits and not hand-waved away with tenuous historical analogies.

Yes, two hundred years ago, many people thought reading was a dangerous distraction for young people, just as film, radio, TV and the internet became later. But there is a qualitative difference to having social media in your pocket with vibrating notifications. Pretending its just more of the same honestly feels like slightly willful blindness at this point.