it takes a lot of energy to run robots. it doesn't take a lot of energy to run migrant wage slaves. human bodies take fuel that's pretty easy to produce and turn it in to labor. robot bodies take a fuel that's limited and difficult to produce (electricity by way of fossil fuels) and turn it in to labor.
there's a never ending supply of wage slaves, especially as economic conditions worsen due to the vagaries for capitalism. if one of your wage slaves breaks down (loses his arm to a turbine while he's picking tomaters) then he's easily replaced - especially if there's a lot of demand for work, but far less demand for unskilled labor. if one of your robots throws a servo then you have to pay a lot of money to either replace the robot or get robot inc. out to fix your robot.
our great technological achievements by way of the information revolution have made hiring wage slaves even easier. you mentioned wanting to run a business defined entirely by algorithms - that business exists, and it's called walmart. walmart is able to buy goods that are very, very cheap because an algorithm has figured out that by buying from X supplier in Y country assembled in Z third world hell hole you can produce the cheapest fake plastic piece of shit possible. our technologies of simulation allow for capital to maximize their business to razor sharp margins of profit because technology means that you can run a factory in indonesia (where the workers work for pennies a day) from the comfort of your mansion in california. you can get goods to the shelf from across the world almost instantly by this same network of computers. walmart is cheap and effective because of their supply chain (allowed by technology), which allows them to grow large and buy at greater economies of scale, which allow them to command better prices for the goods that they buy as a wholesaler and allows them to gain greater technological edge and so on and so forth in a feedback loop. because of this great efficiency which allows for walmart to seek out the cheapest labor, cheapest raw materials, and cheapest goods, walmart has no ties to any nation - it is a globalized nation in and of itself. there is no reason for a factory to be in america, where labor is expensive and safety regulations are cumbersome. because these factories no longer exist (or have their labor cost dragged down by competing with wage slaves in poorer countries) the cost of labor in america also shrinks and makes it even cheaper for businesses that don't have the competitive edge of walmart to use wage slave labor here in the u s of a.
at the same time that technology has made labor insanely, disastrously cheap, it has also allowed for the white collar section of the economy to play the markets in ways that are beyond human comprehension. most trading done today is high frequency trading which is done on the millisecond by intelligent agents created by quants in wall street firms who are compensated in six figure salaries. this detachment from the reality of money has lead, most recently, to our current long recession, where real assets (homes, jobs, educations, futures) were treated like tokens in a game, and a series of short sighted moves on a computer database crashed the real economy. regular traders, or small traders like your local 401k, are forced out of the market and people with extant advantage (the CEO of walmart, for example) are the only players left in this light speed game of poker.
the cheapening of labor also leads to more consumer debt as you are required to have greater (insanely expensive) education to get a job running the computers instead of a service sector job selling cheap plastic shit made by wage slaves in other countries. consumer debt becomes a commodity that can be traded by the algorithmic daemons which comprise global finance.
http://www.thebaffler.com/past/of_flying_cars/ <-- that article by david graeber is a really good primer on this sort of thing
the reason that we don't have automated factories that give us infinite time to pursue our leisure is because there's no economically sensible reason for capitalists to do so. labor is cheap, and cheap labor has the end effecting of further cheapening labor. robots may very well lead to our post-scarcity star trek future (i also doubt this), but there's no reason for someone who already has a very comfortable stake in the current system to make this change. i don't believe in great conspriacies (a capitalist will just as soon slit the throat of his friend for a penny as some prole on the street) but there's a huge systematic resistance to disruptive technology. even the relatively benign and capital-friendly technology of the internet is seen as a threat to the existing system - much less something as disruptive as a system of labor which destroys the current precepts of consumer culture.
so to address your wishes for a society controlled by robots and algorithms: you have your wish. it's just that it fucking blows and doesn't make your life any better - quite the opposite, in fact.
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