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Stuart Gentle Publisher at Onrec

Research by leading tech career hub shows majority of UK adults happy to have a robot at work - but not at home

New research released today into attitudes to robots and artificial intelligence in the home and office has found that over half of UK adults would not be comfortable with having their own personal robot at home, whereas 55% would be open to having a robot in the workplace.

  • Consumers say no to robots at the wheel, putting autonomous cars in the slow lane
  • Most common reasons for not wanting a robot at work are competency (men) and conversation (women)
  • Cleaners, receptionist and train drivers are most likely to be affected by automation in next decade

New research released today into attitudes to robots and artificial intelligence in the home and office has found that over half of UK adults would not be comfortable with having their own personal robot at home, whereas 55% would be open to having a robot in the workplace.

Of the 45% of workers who were not comfortable with workplace robots, the most common reason was that they didn’t think a robot could do their job effectively (48%). They also didn’t think that they could chat to a robot like they could a colleague (44%) and they worry robots could take their job (43%).  

UK adults were most comfortable with having a robot clean their house (60%), performing routine admin tasks at work (52%) and providing security at home (51%).

The survey of 2,000 UK adults conducted by Dice, the career hub for the tech community, also found that those aged 18 to 34 were the most comfortable with the concept of having personal robots (55%) as well as in the workplace (64%).

Some of the biggest worries were allowing robots to look after dependents. Six out of ten (60%) were not comfortable with a robot babysitting their children and 57% weren’t happy with a robot taking their children to school. Almost half (49%) did not feel comfortable with a robot walking their dog. However, the biggest worry was having a robot drive their car (66%).

The research also found that UK adults thought cleaners would be the most likely job role replaced by robots within the next decade (55%). This was followed by receptionists (52%) and train drivers (52%). On the other hand, UK adults thought that key services such as police officers and doctors were the most unlikely to be replaced by robots in the next decade.

Danielle Bedford, Senior Marketing Manager at Dice said; “This research shows that the UK is not as willing to allow a robot into our homes and cars, but there is a rationale for robots and artificial intelligence in the workplace, possibly for repetitive tasks and data management.  At Dice we currently have a number of AI- related technology and software development roles on our career portal, which shows that although still in its early phases, the industry has huge potential and that tech pros can make a career creating the technology behind the workers of the future.”  

www.uk.dice.com