Steam, lemmy and reddit are currently creaming themselves over a game which devs makes multiple really cringe "jokes" about slavery and exploitation. Read the steam page descriptions.
Those "pals" are clearly antropomorphised creatures being dogwhistle for humans. And if you read the game reviews, even the g*mers are not lost on that fact (just they love that):
You can also do that by not designing the game to have busy work, tbf
The thing about survival games is that the busy work is the point. Participation in it at first and finding ways to get around it as your base gets more complex is part of the fun. You start from nothing and eventually through effort and planning get powerful. The busywork is the obstacle for the player to overcome.
Without the busy work survival games become some kind of BR. Which has its appeal but scratch fundementally different itches. A pizza and a burger are quite different even though both have bread.