Robot colleagues have a bad effect - 8th January 2024

According to a new research study, robot assistants in the workplace may be a bad thing. They may make people concentrate less on their work.

Previous scientific studies have looked at "social loafing ". This is when people are less effective at work if their colleague is hard-working. This latest experiment was carried out at the Technical University of Berlin. Scientists intended to find out if social loafing also happens with robot colleagues.

In the experiment, participants were divided into two groups and were given instructions to find several problems with electrical circuit boards. However, one group was told it would be assisted by a robot – Panda. For the first three quarters of the experiment, Panda located every problem with the circuit boards. In this way, participants gradually began to trust the robot. But for the last part, Panda missed some of the faults on the circuit boards.

While they were working, both groups appeared to pay careful attention and spent about the same time checking the circuit boards.

In the end, researchers learned that the group working alone found more problems. There were five errors on each board, and this group discovered an average of 4.2 defects, while the Panda group managed to find only 3.3. Both groups felt they performed well and said they felt responsible. But scientists suggested the group with the robot colleague were "looking not seeing ".

As this was a scientific experiment, the actual difference is likely to be far larger in the real world.