A dystopian vision

Here's a thought: when people are replaced with machines, to keep people from revolting introduce a virtual reality, then gradually work your way so that people invest more and more their time on it - so that their real world wants and needs reduce to the bare essentials, then offer a virtual reality pod, which feeds you and keeps your body temperature stable etc.. Once you get enough people hooked on it, then centralize the maintenance of it - remotely or physically. Then switch the pods off - instantaneously or gradually to get rid of all the blissfully ignorant people you no longer need.

Here's adding to that thought: make a virtual reality game, where you search, chase and collect items, gems or whatever. Playing this game rewards you greatly. In reality the player coordinates are the coordinates of a drone, the items/gems you find are people who pop up on the thermal vision of the drone. These people are the ones who refused to integrate into the VR-system and fled into the woods.