The difference I see is that when we automated car factories, etc. there were still loads of jobs that (a) were better done by a human AND (b) most humans could perform them. The issue is that if you eliminate all jobs that don’t require a PhD or equivalent, what happens to the people who are just not cut out to be nuclear physicists or biochemists, etc?

Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Everyone keeps saying 'no need to worry, no need for society to plan, because jobs happened in the past'. Like we should just put all our hope on these magic future jobs appearing. Plenty of countries exist where there aren't enough jobs. We aren't exempt from that as if some magic jobfairy is looking out for us.