Something that occurs to me when reading this comment that I'm now considering, that isn't necessarily related to this comment directly:

Automation doesn't actually have to be a sole cause of long term unemployment problems for it to be problematic. If Automation just slows the rate at which reemployment occurs after something else (perhaps a recession) causes the unemployment problem, that would still be problematic.

For instance, if we don't recover to the pre-recession peak of employment before we have a second recession, and we don't recover to the pre-second recession peak of employment before we have a third recession.... That would be a downward spiral in employment with large economic effects, and every single one of the sudden downward drops could be caused by recessions, with the automation just hampering reemployment.

I'm kind of surprised I didn't think of something like this before, because it sounds much more accurate than my previous thinking. Thank you for helping me think about this.