What Would You Let a Robot Do? (Infographic)

New Research Reveals Brits Are Worried about Tech Taking Over

A new graphic released this month by RS Components reveals how society feels about robots; do they really have a place in our future? As robots continue to develop and secure their place alongside humanity, a lot of changes to our day-to-day lives are in order. From our worries about machines taking our jobs, to babysitting our offspring, the public has revealed just what they’d be willing to let a robot do for them.

The younger generation were most trusting of robots with 25% of 16 to 24 year olds saying that they’d trust a robot over a human – 3.5 times more than the older generation (55 year olds and over). In fact, overall respondents said they trust a robot so much that they’d rather have a robot pilot fly their plane or perform surgery on them than cut their hair – proving we’re willing to allow robots to perform some of life’s most crucial chores, as long as they don’t cut our hair!

When it comes to housework, 40% of us would hand over our duster and polish to a robot to complete our household chores – and with housework taking an average of 18 hours a week for women and 10 hours a week for men, it’s no wonder that we’re willing to pass these sometimes mind-numbing tasks over to machines!

Fancy hanging up your chefs hat in favour of a lovingly hand cooked meal by a robot? 17% of men and women said they’d allow a robot to cook them a meal. After a long day at work (the UK spends on average 36 hours a week at work), allowing a robot in the kitchen would allow us to put our feet up as soon as we arrive home rather than rummaging around in the fridge trying to throw a meal together.

Wondering where else a robot could fit into your life? Being a friend was ranked in fourth place behind chores, cooking, and driving – suggesting we all may need an extra friend in our lives.

It’s not just household activities that we’d let a robot do either, as 11% said they’d let a robot manage their money, 8% said they’d let a robot manage their retirement fund and 6% said they’d use a robot recruiter. Proving we’re happy for robots to complete the administrative tasks that we don’t want to do.

Vishal Chhatralia, VP of Digital Marketing at RS Components, comments “We’ve seen robots depicted in cinema as evil machines with the potential to take over and wipe out humanity as we know it, but in reality they are being constructed to assist us by picking up smaller and less important tasks”.

“Our study found that overall 34% of us do believe that robots will make everyday life better and even 14% took that a step further to admit they would trust a robot over a human. Whilst the majority (54%) would still choose to trust a human over a machine, more of us think robots will make everyday life better (34%) than those who are worried about robots taking over everyday life (32%)”, Chhatralia added.

For more information on the ‘What would you let a robot do?’ survey, visit RS Components.