Anticipating our future robot society: The evaluation of future robot applications from a user's perspective

With an expected growth of robots in our future society, we believe that potential implications for robot applications should be addressed. Therefore, we conducted an online questionnaire among the general Dutch population (n= 1162) to map the societal impact of robots by identifying potential benefits and disadvantages of future robot applications. People differentiate between several applications, and more realistic applications were also rated more positively. Overall, people associate a future robot society with the positive consequences of efficiency, decrease of casualties, and convenience, and the negative consequences of job loss and robots' lack of social skills. Our qualitative approach provides an in-depth evaluation of potential future robot applications, which could prompt guidelines for the development of acceptable robots.