A much better way of thinking about them is as a technology that allows humans to access information from many other humans and use that information to make decisions.
Automation means not having to do anything twice.
Automation with the Internet means not having to do anything that anyone else has already done.
All that remains are creativity and judgement.
Ideally, the future of humanity is about capturing the upside of emotion while minimizing the downsides. AI is a perfect instrument to help us achieve this balance.