Service Robotics and Human Labor: A first technology assessment of substitution and cooperation

•We discuss how service robots interact with human labor.•We identify different job segments that might come under pressure.•We describe how human-machine cooperation should be developed from a work science perspective.•We define first concluding criteria to assess service robots with respect to human labor.

Since the beginning of robotics, the substitution of human labor has been one of the crucial issues. The focus is on the economic perspective, asking how robotics affects the labor market, and on changes in the work processes of human workers. While there are already some lessons learnt from industrial robotics, the area of service robots has been analyzed to a much lesser extent. First insights into these aspects are of utmost relevance to technology assessment providing policy advice. As conclusions for service robots in general cannot be drawn, we identify criteria for the ex-ante evaluation of service robots in concrete application areas.