A study from Brigham Young University (BYU) suggests that the perception about robots replacing humans in the workplace may sometimes be exaggerated.

Although there are robots taking over certain tasks in the workplace, the research reveals that the occurrence is not as much as survey respondents think.

Source: Jaren Wilkey/BYU

To reach this conclusion, a survey of 2,000 people was conducted where respondents were asked whether their job had been replaced with robots at their company. Respondents were also asked to estimate the percentage of employees who have been replaced with a robot in their workplace.

According to the results, 14% of respondents reported having been replaced in the workplace with a robot. Additionally, of the 14% who answered that they had been replaced by a robot in the workplace, those respondents also estimated that 47% of all jobs had been taken over by robots. Meanwhile, those respondents who had not experienced job replacement estimated that 29% of all jobs had been taken over by robots.

In other words, those who had not lost their jobs overestimated by double while those who did lose their jobs overestimated by roughly three times.

The findings are published in the article, Are Robots Really Stealing Our Jobs? Perception versus Experience, which appears in the journal Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World.