>How it should happen: we all work less on things that “must” be done, giving us more time for leisure and innovation

Unlikely. If workers had been given their share of increasing productivity since automation became widespread, we'd be working 20 hour weeks with full employment and benefits.

See, for example, point XIV from the charter of the Knights of Labor from the late 1800's

“XIV. The reduction of the hours of labor to eight per day, so that laborers may have more time for social enjoyment and intellectual improvement, and be enabled to reap the advantages conferred by the labor-saving machinery which their brains have created.”