The electrical grid collapses in a couple weeks if not for constant maintenance by thousands of individuals. Many parts of our technology society are like that, it will be interesting to see how the system decays.
Automation would need some breakthrough as profound as life itself to be useful without the millions of people behind the scenes making automation possible.
Based on unemployment rates, wages, and profits, we have a long way to go before labor for infrastructure maintenance is so scarce it cannot be maintained.
But the point is that you must begin poaching people from other parts of the economy to keep the essentials going, and therefore begin to chip away at our standard of living.
Automation would need some breakthrough as profound as life itself to be useful without the millions of people behind the scenes making automation possible.