Is the future co-robotic? Insights from poultry processing workers testing VR enabled collaboration

• In Event: 50220 - Section on Organizations, Occupations, and Work Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 2: Automation and AI

Abstract

The study described in this paper took place in October of 2024, in a mid-sized poultry processing plant in Akransas. In this study we describe the conditions of poultry processing plants that make the need for robotic assistant relevant and the perceptions of current poultry processing plant works to a proposed innovation - collaborating with a robotic arm by “Communicating” through pixels in virtual reality. Preliminary coding of 17 interviews/pilot tests indicate that most people’s first concern was that their job would be replaced by a robot (but 2 people were enthusiastic about futuristic working conditions). In addition, most people had movie images of “steel” humanoid robots before play testing, and very few people had tried virtual reality before. After going into VR and “telling” a robotic arm where to put a suction cub on a chicken carcass and watching it load the carcass on the cone, they wanted to think through what the technology could mean for their work. Some were surprised that they could ever do remote work. The task, however, involved their actions in Arkansas resulting in a robot acting in Georgia. Some were skeptical that the robot arm could accomplish all of the specifications of the job in a way sufficient to set up the net worker in line for success. Several were curious about the whole project and appreciated a chance to talk about the work with the people creating the robotic system. The Roboticists were highly appreciative to work with a sociologist who could design an interview protocol, who elicited perceptions of robots before and after the task, and who could handle the ethics review process.

Author

• Julia McQuillan, University of Nebraska-Lincoln