Over the past few years, the issue of Robotics has been given a great deal of attention in the scientific and popular news medium. Robots are playing an increasingly important role in industry in the U.S. and in other countries. All the attention has led to much speculation on the economic impact of these robots. In this paper, I will discuss the main issues of robotics in industry, specifically, the effects of robotics on productivity and unemployment, and the possible ways of dealing with the resulting problems. To better understand these issues, it would be helpful to know exactly what a robot is. The official definition established by the Robot Institute of America is as follows. "A robot is a reprogrammable multifunctional manipulator designed to move material, parts, tools or other specialized devices through variable programmed motions for the performance of a variety of 1K tasks." The application of robots is relatively limited. At this time, robots are only capable of welding, painting, sanding and a few other similar simple operations. However, it is projected that within the next few years technology will advance enough so "Robots will be sensor-based with tactile or visual 2K perception and capable of assembly and other more complex jobs." - 1 - The automobile industry is the largest user of industrial robots and according to most sources will continue to be through the next decade. There are 10,000 robots in use in the U.S. today. Taking interest rates, GNP growth and projected auto sales into account it is estimated that 50,000 to 100,000 will be in use by 1990, 20,000 of these in the auto industry. On account of these estimates one question that has been raised is what this increase will mean to U.S. industrial productivity. Some people have looked at a specific case, for example the automobile industry where one robot can do the work of four welders, and immediately made the generalization that robots increase productivity. A closer look at this issue will reveal two main reasons why this statement cannot so easily be inferred. First, the fact that there are only 10,000 robots means that today they have virtually no impact on productivity of the economy as a whole, and given that future projections are accurate, will probably have very little impact on the overall productivity of the nation in the near future. "Robots will not significantly effect economic productivity until they are used in 3K hundreds of thousands of everyday applications." This will not be possible before a large number of technical problems are solved. Robot positioning accuracy, dynamic performance, robot sensory perception, internal control systems, techniques for developing robot software and robot mobility are all very complex K - 2 - problems which will take years of research before they are made available for widespread application. Second, in major manufacturing industries, "labor costs only 4K account for between 15 to 20 percent of total costs". So a reduction in l