Will automation emancipate us from labour?
Depends on the definition of labour. There, indeed, are people who like some kind of non-intellectual labour. There are people who don't like it. Intellectual labour is - arts, science and philosophy. Yes, mere translation of algorithm from human language to programming language is not really intellectual. But development of new algorithms is intellectual labour.
Of course, the word emancipate means those who don't want X, won't need to do it in order to fulfill their desires.
So, why have I started to talk about intellectual labour? As you may think, among those people who do intellectual labour, much higher percentage do it because they want to do it, as opposed to those who do physical labour. Latter majorly do it only to have money, which on their turn, allows people to fulfill their desires. If they were not be in need for money, they would not do it. While artists, scientists and philosophers still would exist and do arts, science and philosophy.
This means that non-intellectual labour is majorly seen as undesirable and should be automated. People strived for this, and do it now. Of course, large corporations, as I see it, do it partially because it allows to get money faster. But that does not negate the fact that people want to get more by spending less.
So, there are a few prognoses possible.
Prognosis 1.
Automation reaches the threshold when further automation is unprofitable for large companies, from the position of currency. So, automation stops. And no emancipation from labour.
Prognosis 2.
This prognosis is really pessimistic one. As we know, money have only instrumental value. When there are only a little money, their value is survival and purchase of some desirable goods and services. But when there are a lot of money, their value turns to hard power. Power itself already can be seen by some people as having intrisic value. And then those people would prefer to have robots and other devices, while depriving others. Just because it allows having more power, which is seen as having intrisic value.
But as I said, it is pessimistic one, if really many people see power as intrisically valuable and not merely instrumentally.
Prognosis 3.
As I said in prognosis 1, there is a threshold when further automation is unprofitable. In the optimistic case people will change current social structure by better one. By current I mean the one that offers only money as stimulus for labour (and automation itself is labour). By better I mean one that is better suited for it's purpose - emancipation from labour. In either case, it won't be capitalistic anymore.
So, as you can see, it won't necessarily result in emancipation from labour, but it is surely possible. Also, I should note that automation of non-intellectual labour is desirable, whatever the consequences people are seeing.
E.g. @jobermark wrote
because the machines might need to be self-aware
Are the persons, who like non-intellectual labour, as I said in the start of my post, dangerous? I don't think so. It would not be better to create people who like non-intellectual labour (take "Brave New World" for example) than to create machines doing it.
because disaster would take them off-line and culture would not pass down the ability to recreate them
There are many disasters that would take humanity "off-line" and machines surely can help mitigate or totally prevent them.
because humans without purpose lose track of sanity
This depends on the definition of sanity. There surely are people who would incessantly use drugs or will just be so bored that they'd commit a suicide. But majority of people wants automation not for these purposes.
I don't see any problems why should automation be banned.