Summary of the Workshop "Working side by side with Robots"

The increased integration of autonomous robots in industrial settings requires not only that industrial robots display more "human-like" behaviors for efficient human-robot collaboration (HRC) but also regulations for safety and ethical viewpoint in the working environment. On the one hand, we need to build robots that can act autonomously in a given and sometimes unpredictable environment. On the other hand, we want the same robots to cooperate with humans to reach a common goal in a safe environment. In this workshop, we want to address some of the issues that are relevant for HRC in industrial settings, including its "human factors" such as lack of trust and adaptability to autonomous machines in collaborative tasks, accountability (legal rights and obligations), and especially the sentiment that robots are "stealing jobs." Whereas some hope that in this HRC endeavor (supposed to boost industrial and economic growth) humans will have a supervisory role, thus decreasing their physical and cognitive efforts, some others are concerned that autonomous robots will have a negative impact on our economic growth and pose a negative challenge for our culture.