Automation has never unemployed people, only persons. Specific categories of jobs are removed by automation, but these are replaced by other categories of jobs. Demand is created for the products of these jobs, and the whole machine keeps turning.
The consumer driven economy is built on artificial demand. The vast majority of 'stuff' bought is unnecessary. Without advertising and a culture that emphasises keeping up with the joneses we would see unemployment on a large scale, but our economy has adapted to fill the unemployment niches.
The real challenge is not how to prevent unemployment through automation. It is to find an alternate solution to artificially inflated demand which doesn't waste so much labor and materials producing goods and services which are strictly speaking unnecessary.