What happened in the 80s too is that politics told us automation would bring a 3 days work week, which never materialized. But now we have to trust the same people, moved by the same greed, that this time it'll be different
It's the same breed of people, bred from the same system, not literally the same people but the people following on the footsteps. Greed is the constant.
Hell, it has been going much longer than only 40 years ago, on "In Praise of Idleness" Bertrand Russell talked about how industrialisation with its automation should be helping workers to work less 90 years ago.