Working with robots often carries mental strain, studies find

Picking orders at an enormous warehouse kitted out with robots was less physically demanding than other fulfilment roles that required her to do the heavy lifting, says Jessica, an Amazon worker in her 40s. But she also realised from her very first shift that the job was “frankly, damn boring”.

She would spend up to 12 hours standing in one place, selecting items from a bin transported to her by one of dozens of robots whizzing around the floor. Compared with non-automated facilities, the pace of work was faster and often out of her control, which she found stressful. “When you got busy, you would have 20 robots lined up to come to your station,” she says.

Jessica left after less than a year. She is now employed at a less automated Amazon distribution centre, where the pace is slower and she can more easily chat with co-workers. It’s not perfect — but it is much more enjoyable, she says.

The great promise of robots and other automation systems has long been that they will take over “dirty, dull, dangerous and difficult” jobs, freeing up humans for more creative, social or engaging tasks. But a growing body of research suggests that working alongside industrial robots can have negative psychological effects on workers, too.

Last year, a University of Groningen study of 20 European countries found that workers in industries with higher levels of robotisation reported significantly less feelings of purpose in their jobs. The effect was particularly high on perceptions of meaningfulness and on autonomy at work.

“When we look at the tasks people report doing after robotisation, it seems that there’s an increase in monotonous, repetitive, routine tasks,” says Milena Nikolova, lead author of the paper and a professor in the economics of wellbeing.

“Because they standardise and routinise the work process, you as a worker have fewer decisions to make . . . in terms of what tasks you do, the order in which you do them, or often even the speed you do them, because you’re dependent on the work pace of the robot.”

The effect is important not just on an individual level, but also because people who find purpose in their work put in more effort, are less likely to want to quit their jobs and miss fewer days of work, she adds.

Separate analysis by the EU agency Eurofound backed this up, finding that workers who interact with robots reported increases in several undesirable working conditions such as increased surveillance and working alone.

Another study of manufacturing workers in China published in 2024 concluded that robots were associated with better physical health but worse mental stress, in particular because of anxieties about job security.

Such findings are unsurprising, says Matt Beane, an expert in the impact of robotics and AI on work at UC Santa Barbara and MIT. Research going back to the 1940s has linked automation to degraded job quality and opportunities for workers.

“Generally, the better we get at automating the humans left in the building, especially at low-paid, entry-level frontline jobs, they are, unless very artfully managed, just going to get quite deskilled.”

The problem is likely to become more widespread. Only 3 per cent of European workers interacted directly with a robot in 2022, according to Eurofound. But uptake of industrial robots is surging in many countries, according to data the International Federation of Robotics, an industry body.

As robots become more sophisticated and widely applied, more highly skilled roles may start to feel less meaningful, too. Beane has observed jet pilots operating surveillance drones and surgeons using robotic arms. Both say their work becomes far safer but also more boring and alienating.

That may even persist in space. Researchers at Cardiff University’s Human-Robot Interaction Laboratory are testing a robot for use in the International Space Station that can make low-level decisions on its own.

“What we were trying to achieve is robots that are more capable and [can] collaborate in a more effective way,” says Juan Hernandez Vega, a senior lecturer at the university. “But a side effect is that we are decreasing the responsibility of the human in this partnership, leading to undesired behaviours like people getting bored or finding the task less appealing.”

For its part, the robotics industry prefers to focus on how the technology can enable workers to upskill and take on more social and creative tasks — for example, by greeting customers rather than flipping burgers.

ABB, a leading manufacturer, says its “cobots” or collaborative robots have a more “human-centred, approachable design” than traditional industrial robots and “the user experience standards of a consumer appliance”. In the future, AI will enable robots to freely navigate workplaces and interact more naturally with human co-workers, it adds.

Fanuc, another major robotics company, is supporting the Swiss University of Applied Sciences to create more “empathetic” industrial robots that can respond to workers’ emotions.

At Amazon, attempts to relieve workers’ tedium include mini-games that rank their pace against other employees, something Jessica says she found motivating. Amazon says its 750,000 fulfilment centre robots are “uniquely designed to collaborate with humans, and to safely share space with our associates”, adding that it provides several ways for its employees to provide feedback.

For Nikolova, the solution may not be technical at all. She believes automation works best when workers are involved in its design and deployment. Reskilling to make sure workers are equipped to keep up with the technology and step into new roles is also vital.

“We often forget that it’s not just about displacing humans,” she says. “Technology also creates new jobs and challenges for people that we cannot even imagine today.”