Robotics: Integration with humans and ethics issues of worker displacement

Management personnel believe that increasing productivity must be a foremost concern in business regardless of employee displacement. Congruent with this position of management, labor personnel believe that management has very little concern over costs to workers who are displaced by machines.; A Delphi Group was established to ascertain a number of ethics issues from the perspective of persons of different disciplines. The opinions gathered from the Delphi Group were used in a survey of two mutually exclusive populations, labor and management. The data were quantitatively manipulated.; One of the foremost challenges to managers at all levels is to increase productivity. Productivity can be increased by employing robots. Therefore, one of the most obvious solutions to productivity problems is further automation. The selection of this alternative will have profound effects on industrial workers.; Management does not believe that the expanded use of industrial robots will lead to serious labor problems. Labor is amenable to limited use of robots in jobs which are dangerous and tedious but workers will resist widespread use of robots. Indeed, industrial workers fear robots and believe that robotic technology will be a major threat to all human workers in the near future.; Labor wants advance notice on such issues as jobs which will be affected by robotization, retraining opportunities, and the organization's plans for the future.; Industrial workers believe that they must consider retraining as a step toward job security. Labor does not believe that the union will adequately provide for the job security needs of its membership.; Management must educate the work force for the new work environment through information at a conceptual level, specific information on the jobs to be affected, and through technical training. Labor is receptive to this type of an educational program. If management works in a "vacuum" and unilaterally makes decisions relating to the new work environment, then the needed support of labor will be minimal and the risk of declining human productivity will be great.