I could probably automate hugging my children, but I sure as hell wouldn't want to.
We should try to build a world where people get to live with as much safety, dignity, meaning, and reward as we can. We should build a world where if people were given the choice between it and some other world with different parameters, they would choose the former.
Automation is a piece of that, but absolutely not an end goal. Often people are happiest when doing things that are not automated.
The only reason it is seen as a bad thing is that the economic system coerced you into proving you deserve basic necessities.