Working with robots: will it make us lazy?
Research has suggested we slack off when teamed with a robot – an effect seen with other technologies, too. Nicole Kobie reveals what’s happening
Robots make us lazy. Not because Roombas are vacuuming our houses, but because humans have a habit of slacking off when sharing tasks. That’s according to recent research that had humans and robots working side by side – sort of – to inspect circuit boards. The results suggest that working within a team, robot or otherwise, can inspire and motivate, but it can also spark “social loafing” – when a team member knows their own contribution can’t be discerned among the wider effort, they let others pick up the slack.
You might be thinking of that one guy at work who never pitches in, but when it comes to robots, we might be that guy.
But then again, isn’t that how it’s supposed to work? What’s the point of robotics that don’t make life easier? Plenty of robots are designed to replace more expensive human workers, not least because they’re able to work longer hours on repetitive tasks without breaks. But robotics are also built for precision work, able to manage details deemed too fiddly for humans – or too difficult. Indeed, the very first industrial robots started work in American automotive manufacturing in 1961, with the Unimate picking parts out of diecasting machines. No-one would call those factory workers lazy for happily passing that dangerous and dirty job over to machines.
Since then, robots have slowly stepped into the workplace, with the number used globally for commercial uses tripling in the past 20 years to more than two million. Of course, that’s still small compared to the number of human workers out there, and much of that robotic labour has been in manufacturing.
However, a recent shortage of workers has sparked efforts to further push robots into new industries, in particular warehousing and logistics, but improvements in artificial intelligence have some hoping robots will find roles in a wider range of work.
As that happens, we’ll have to keep a careful watch over how robot helpers impact their human coworkers, and whether we’ll overrely on our machine colleagues.
What the research says
The risk of overreliance on robots and human workers becoming lazier was revealed by research from the Technical University of Berlin. “Teamwork is a mixed blessing,” Dietlind Helene Cymek, first author of the study in Frontiers in Robotics and AI, said in a statement. “Working together can motivate people to perform well but it can also lead to a loss of motivation because the individual contribution is not as visible. We were interested in whether we could also find such motivational effects when the team partner is a robot.”
To test this idea, the researchers tasked volunteers with inspecting an image of a circuit board for errors. Some of the participants were told that the board they were looking at had already been inspected by a robot named Panda. This wasn’t true, as Panda lacks the ability to actually complete the task, but the human inspectors didn’t know that – and the researchers made sure the participants had seen the robot and heard it “working” to convince them.
There was no difference in the amount of time each group – those who did all the inspection, and those who had “help” from Panda – spent examining the boards. But it soon became clear that those who believed they were working alongside a robot were spotting fewer errors, which the researchers said could be the result of “looking but not seeing”. In other words, the robot-partnered participants were zoning out, believing their work wasn’t necessary because Panda would spot the errors.
The researchers admit it’s difficult to know exactly what was going on in each participant’s head, and the lab setting might have skewed results, as would-be social loafers know they’re being watched. Research in real-world settings would therefore be ideal, said Cymek. And if the rise of robots at work continues, we should have plenty of opportunities to do just that.
What’s the point of robots?
When robots operate alongside people, an idea sometimes referred to as collaborative robots or “cobots”, the aim is to lighten the workload. Perhaps robots take on difficult jobs – as with the Unimate and diecasting in American car factories 60 years ago – or handle repetitive work that would bore or physically stress a human worker. But that’s not always the case: Amazon has been criticised for requiring human staff to do repetitive roles quickly without breaks so they can keep pace with robot helpers. (The humans and robots are working side by side because robots can’t do all of the tasks required... yet.)
Part of the challenge comes down to the motivation behind using robots. No-one complains that Roomba owners are lazy for failing to vacuum the floors themselves; robotic vacuums are a clever way to avoid certain chores, just the same as a dishwasher or a fridge save labour for homemakers.
And that’s one reason why Kathleen Richardson, professor of ethics and culture of robots and AI at de Montfort University in Leicester, is so critical of the robot-sparked laziness research. In short: shouldn’t robots make work nicer, easier or better? “It sounds reasonable that maybe somebody goes into work every day and believe the computers are going to find the problems and we’ll do less work – that seems an entirely reasonable thing,” she said.
“These people have clearly never worked in factories in their lives, right?” added Richardson of the researchers. “They’ve got no idea what it must be like to go to work every day and work on a production line, and how mind-numbingly boring it is and how you need to do it in order to pay bills. I think they come at it from a managerial approach.” In other words, they’re concerned about the benefits of robots in the workplace, but not the potential beneficial impacts for workers.
Beware robot limitations
But take a step back and Richardson says the research is revealing in other ways.
For example, the robot wasn’t capable of the work it was pretending to do. The human test subjects believed it was, and some of them leaned on it, believing the robot would act as a safety net. This idea of overreliance on technology perceived to be smart isn’t new, but it is important.
There are lots of stories of drivers letting satnav systems direct them into dangerous or foolish situations. That also holds true with autonomous cars, as research suggests many of us are happy to pass off driving to AI systems, even when we’re told we need to continue to pay attention and keep our hands on the wheel. (Tesla’s Autopilot requires hands-on driving, but plenty of people post videos of themselves not paying attention, despite multiple accidents.)
With this robot research, the human test subjects believed their coworkers were reliable, but that
“These people have got no idea what it must be like to go to work every day and work on a production line, and how boring it is”
wasn’t true. This suggests that human workers need to be fully aware of the limitations of robots when such machines are eventually introduced to workplaces, and – as the researchers themselves said – further studies in real settings would reveal other concerns and mitigations needed as robots step into new roles.
The research is also intriguing as it picks up on how workers might integrate robotics into their working lives. And that begins with the human tendency to anthropomorphise machinery, smart or otherwise; anyone who’s ever named a stapler will recognise this habit. While we may criticise treating robots like humans – perhaps giving them faces to seem friendly or naming them – this is the only way many of us have to mediate our understanding with these tools, says Richardson.
“It seemed like the researchers were interested in finding out something that was not really about the workers’ experience, they were interested in this co-experience – but it’s not even a co-experience. I’m not having a co-experience with my computer,” she added.
Cobots today
ABB Group makes cobots, launching the Umi in 2015, and so has a good sense of how human coworkers interact with their products. By cobots, the Swedish-Swiss company doesn’t just mean robots that people work alongside, but robots that human workers can actively interact with, such as programming their actions by physically moving their arms and so on.
“The idea is that this robot should be friendly, and have safety functions built in so it can work alongside humans,” said Andie Zhang, global product manager for ABB’s Collaborative Robots division, noting that the cobots don’t require external fencing for safety. “The industrial design is very important to make the humans feel comfortable standing next to the robot, aside from safety functions we went to great lengths for our cobots to have a friendly and intuitive design.”
The robots are used in a wide range of roles, from manufacturing to logistics and medical labs. “Typical applications can be lifting parts, moving things from one area to another, such as picking up a block of metal or plastic and putting it inside a machine, and when the part is finished, the robot picks it up and takes it out,” she said. “Another typical application is palletising at the end of line, putting products in boxes and stacking boxes on top of each other.”
The humans that work alongside the cobots decide what they do. “The robot will not do anything that is not pre-programmed or determined by humans,” she said.
And, typically, they don’t work in sequence or depend on each other – the robot has a job to get on with, as do humans. “We don’t want them to be dependent on each other, like the robot handing something to the human but the human is doing something else, so the robot is left waiting,” she clarified.
Instead, a robot would be perhaps manufacturing a part, while the human might inspect for quality, move the finished goods or supply new materials. “It’s more like supervising,” Zhang said. “But they will be working in this common shared workspace.”
Robots can’t replace us yet
The introduction of cobots or robots can cause concern in a workplace about job losses, Zhang admits. She points out a key fact that many miss when discussing job losses: so far, robots can’t replace humans. “They’re collaborating because the robot can’t do it all from the beginning to the end of the entire process,” she said.
Still, managers should acknowledge those concerns when introducing robots to a process, explaining their purpose beforehand – perhaps it’s taking on a role that’s difficult to hire to fill, the aim is to boost productivity, or to take on difficult or dangerous jobs. “People feel relieved that the robot can do the toughest, most repetitive, boring jobs,” said Zhang.
“Whereas humans... learn to operate automation, which is upskilling for them.”
And from ABB’s experience, letting human employees interact with robots is key to using them successfully. Employees should not only get a chance to try programming their coworkers – which can be as simple as tapping a button, moving an arm into position, and so on – but also to try stopping the robot with their hands, achieved by simply touching it. “It’s important that before the robots are put to work that the workers around the robot experience what it’s like to both move the robot around to start the programme and also experience what it’s like to safely stop the robot with their hand,” she said. “This way they feel comfortable and know that they’re in control.
“The point of a robot is it’s a tool, and it’s supposed to improve our work,” she added. “You’re not meant to give it the same task as a human.” The researchers were testing a circumstance that wouldn’t happen in a real setting, she notes.
And though we may get lazy with driving directions when using satnav, Zhang wonders if that’s really such a bad thing? “We can get from A to B in a more effective, efficient way,” she said. “And we can focus on thinking about using our mind for other things.”
That’s how it should be with robots, she argues. The robot should do the boring, repetitive tasks, and the human should be given better work. And there’s nothing lazy about that.
“The point of a robot is it’s a tool, and it’s supposed to improve our work. You’re not meant to give it the same task as a human”