Would You Assign Household Chores to Robots?
Despite fears that robots could take away jobs, Filipinos still welcome their help to ease tedious work
Almost two-thirds of Filipinos believe robots would eventually take their jobs away from them, according to the results of a new survey by YouGov, an online international market research and data analytics firm based in UK.
Still, Filipinos are “cautiously optimistic” about the impact of robots in their everyday lives. YouGov reported that 73 percent of Filipinos agree robots will make their lives easier, while 75 percent believe robots can do things humans don’t want to do. Only one in 20 Filipinos said they would not want a robot in their lives.
In the survey, YouGov listed 12 possible uses of a robot, which they asked the respondents to choose from. Out of the 12, “cleaning the house” emerged as the most popular function, selected by eight out of every 10 Filipino respondents.
“Security” emerged as the second most wanted robot task, which was chosen by 76 percent of the respondents, while another 68 percent chose “assistance at work.”
“Child care,” “managing my finances” and “care of the elderly,” received the least votes out of the 12 choices. The other functions include (ranked 4th to 9th) “carrying things without me,” “carrying things beside me,” “gardening,” “companionship,” “driving” and “sports.”
In general, appreciation of the threat that robots could take over people’s jobs depends on respondents’ age. More younger Filipinos tend to believe that robots could do a better job than them.
For example, about 11 percent of those aged 18 to 29 years old believe that a robot would be better than them in their current job. In contrast, only eight percent of those aged 30 to 44 years old believed in the same thing while only six percent of those aged 45 and above thought so.
In contrast, 61 percent of those aged 45 and above, and 60 percent of those aged 30 to 44 years old, thought that robots would do worse than them. Compared to this, only 53 percent of Filipinos aged 18 to 29 years old believed robots wouldn’t do well as them.
YouGov collected data through its online survey platform between September 11 and September 28, 2017 and was able to gather a sample size of 2,777 Filipinos. Aside from Asia Pacific, YouGov also has operations in Europe, North America and the Middle East.
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Pauline Macaraeg is Entrepreneur PH's data journalist. Follow her on Twitter @paulinemacaraeg
This story originally appeared on Entrepreneur.com.ph.
* Minor edits have been made by the Realliving.com.ph editors.
