People always say: "Things ended up working out in the end"
Things only worked out in the sense that society carried on without all the people who lost their jobs.
The U.S. has recent examples of large scale job destruction.
Michigan: From 2000-2009. Massive job destruction. 330,000 auto workers in 2000. Down to 109,000 in 2009. Estimates are that 1/3-1/2 of all those affected never achieved equal/similar employment. That is, somewhere around ~70k-120k workers never earned as much as they previously did. Since this was msotly contained within one city (Detroit), it's pretty easy for the country to ignore it and go on with their lives.
(Detroit was in decline since the 50's really. 2000-2009 is just a particularly bad snapshot.)
Coal mining towns have experienced the same phenomenon but more gradually. The poverty left behind by the destruction of those jobs has never been addressed.
With AI, we are heading into a situation where potentially a much larger amount of people will be affected. So maybe that changes the calculus on the government stepping in and fixing the problem. But I wouldn't count on it.
Sources for Michigan numbers:
https://lehd.ces.census.gov/doc/workshop/2010/LEDautopres031...
https://research.upjohn.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1205...
