Take a look at the comments section of any Boston Dynamics YouTube announcement, and you’ll find plenty of people wondering this very thing. However, the truth may be a little more nuanced.
In this video, Universal Robots President Jurgen Von Hollen discusses how the majority of robotic automation is actually used to complete tasks in factories where employers can’t hire qualified people.
According to Von Hollen, automation can take repetitive, dull and ergonomically unhealthy tasks from human workers. Even without robots, these types of low-skill tasks typically have high turnover. Automation creates opportunities for those workers to move into more stimulating or creative tasks, such as programming and maintaining the robots themselves.