As far as maintenance of telerobots, in the extreme case it's performed by other telerobots, manned by call centers full of "certified" gamers 10 or 10,000 miles away. Maybe not even call centers. Maybe employees are just perpetually on call, forced to "goggle in" periodically throughout the day to snake a drain in Brisbane or Bangladesh or Boise. In fact, they were probably goggled in already, playing U(niverse)oS(tarcraft) XXII, so they just alt-tab over.
Sounds crazy, I know, but it does seem to follow the general historical trend of alleviating manual labor from those of lower and lower socioeconomic status, while neatly sidestepping the problem of Strong AI with an ass-ton of artificial artificial intelligence.
The romantic, manly labor the article talks about requires the direct manipulation of physical reality with one's hands. The above scenario is skilled, certainly, but by no means manual.
Sounds crazy, I know, but it does seem to follow the general historical trend of alleviating manual labor from those of lower and lower socioeconomic status, while neatly sidestepping the problem of Strong AI with an ass-ton of artificial artificial intelligence.
The romantic, manly labor the article talks about requires the direct manipulation of physical reality with one's hands. The above scenario is skilled, certainly, but by no means manual.