Tim Hink’s article “Fear on Robots and Life Satisfaction” is forthcoming in the International Journal of Social Robotics.
The use of robots and in particular next-generation robots in the production of goods and services is increasing. What impact robots are having on people’s quality of life, including workers, is as yet under-explored. This paper provides initial findings examining whether fear of robots is correlated with one aspect of quality of life: life satisfaction. After controlling for individual effects and country effects and using both standard ordinary least squares and a linear multilevel regression model, we find fear of robots correlates with lower reported life satisfaction. There are differences in the fear of robots and life satisfaction by age group, by how long countries have been members of the European Union and by whether we control for attitudes towards other things. Presently the governance of emerging science and innovation that includes next-generation robots, roboticists and technologists is a “major challenge to contemporary democracies” (Stilgoe et al, 2013, p.1568). Along with others we call for a more responsible innovation framework that includes all stakeholders in the innovation process to understand where I4.0 can best be used in national and international interests.
