We will soon see the same happening with manual labour. In Switzerland, when they cut the grass on the side of the highway, they use remote controlled robots when they’re cutting a steep slope. There’s a guy sitting nearby controlling it, but there’s no reason he needs to be in Switzerland.

And take construction sites. There are often no longer workers up there in the cranes. The cranes are controlled remotely by people on the ground. The demolition machines are also controlled remotely. There’s no particular reason you couldn’t have just one person on site and the rest working remotely from Uganda or Kenya, say.

If we already have remote controlled robots, why aren’t people already using them to work from overseas?

One of the problems is network delays. Even a half second can make a big difference. You also have to set up control systems – you can’t just decide to hire some remote construction workers to work in London tomorrow.

The robots are also expensive – even moderately good ones cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. But once we start mass producing them, they’ll be as cheap as cars, and then it will make sense to have them cleaning hotel rooms.

We just haven’t got around to it yet. Look at what happened with call centres, however. Call centres here all used to be in London office buildings. Then they were moved to the suburbs. Then they moved to Scotland – and now they’re in India.