Automation makes me very happy. I'm glad I don't need to wash dishes and my clothes by hand, walk/ride 20 km to work every day, use a slide ruler to do my math, etc.
Was that your question, or were you wondering if making a ping-pong playing robot was a good idea?
Happiness is an unstable state of mind. Anything, situation,action, emotion, nature, realization etc which brings one into this state will cause happiness transiently .IMHO .The best path to this is acquisition of knowledge ..from which everything else is derived.That is why ...i suspect that today,s world (in aggregate) with all its problems is happier than in ancient times..
So finally automation (if used wisely) being a derivative of "acquisition of knowledge" is possibly one of the instruments of happiness...