she was commenting more generally about tedious chore-type activities versus fun, creative activities.

No, I get that. I just find that much of the tedious work has already been automated about as far as is practical. Everything afterwards requires the kind of manual dexterity and human cognition to accomplish that machines have never done well.

I'll spot you that we're talking about multiple trillions of dollars in national investments. And that could be going to high speed rail lines and supersonic jets. It could be going to massive solar/wind farms and upgraded drainage/wastewater recycling. It could be going to nuclear power for ecological preservation and nationalized health care.

That's not "automation" in the household sense. But all of these investments would take industrial infrastructure to leverage economies of scale and meaningfully improve the quality of life of hundreds of millions of people by saving them time and personal expenses. If you care about saving people's time from tedium, there's improvements we could make. But they aren't consumer household improvements so much as civil engineering projects.