It's funny because lately I have been applying that quote to people being terrified of "AI". (I hate that we use that word to describe stuff like LLMs, but that's another topic.)
There are countless points in history where a technological advance has rendered some human labor less or no longer needed. There's nothing to be done about it; that's how progress works-- it's why we're not mostly farmers anymore.
The solution to technology rendering human labor less or no longer needed is for society to divorce the need to work from living a comfortable life. It's certainly not to try and hold back or eliminate the technology solely to protect human labor.