A quote from Overcoming Bias a while ago on the meaning of life and the future and all that:
But then won't people be bored?
No; they can play computer games - not like our games, of course, but much more advanced and entertaining.
Yet wait! If you buy a modern computer game, you'll find that it contains some tasks that are - there's no kind word for this - effortful. (I would even say "difficult", with the understanding that we're talking about something that takes 10 minutes, not 10 years.)
So in the future, we'll have programs that help you play the game - taking over if you get stuck on the game, or just bored; or so that you can play games that would otherwise be too advanced for you.
But isn't there some wasted effort, here? Why have one programmer working to make the game harder, and another programmer to working to make the game easier? Why not just make the game easier to start with? Since you play the game to get gold and experience points, making the game easier will let you get more gold per unit time: the game will become more fun.
So this is the ultimate end of the prophecy of technological progress - just staring at a screen that says "YOU WIN", forever.
And maybe we'll build a robot that does that, too.
Then what?