Advantages and Disadvantages of Using Robots — Robotics | IGCSE Computer Science

Exam Frequency Analysis

Past paper frequency (2018 to 2024)

This topic accounts for approximately 3% of your exam marks.

stable

Rare

Stable3%

Advantages/disadvantages of using robots in industry are the typical question format.

Many of these have appeared in the application-specific tables above; here is the general view.

Advantage	Why it matters
Safety	Robots can do dangerous jobs (bomb disposal, deep-sea inspection, radioactive cleanup, factory welding) that would put humans at serious risk
Repeatability and precision	A robot performs the same action with the same accuracy every time; ideal for assembly, surgery and laboratory tasks
24/7 operation	Robots do not need breaks, sleep, food, holidays or pay
Productivity	Tasks are completed faster, with less rework and fewer mistakes
Strength	Robots can lift heavy loads humans could not safely handle
Working in extreme environments	Robots can operate at very high or low temperatures, in vacuum, underwater, or in space
Frees humans for higher-value work	Routine tasks are automated; humans can focus on tasks needing creativity or judgement

Disadvantage	Why it matters
High upfront cost	Designing, buying and installing robots is expensive; ROI may take years
Ongoing maintenance	Robots need regular service, software updates and occasional repair
Job displacement	Roles disappear when their tasks are automated; workers may need re-training
Inflexibility	Most robots only handle the situations they have been programmed for; novel scenarios may baffle them
Cyber-security risk	Networked robots can be hacked; consequences range from production downtime to physical harm
Lack of human judgement	Robots cannot weigh ethical considerations or react to unusual situations the way a person can
Safety risks to humans nearby	Industrial robots are powerful; collisions with workers can cause injury, so they often need cages or careful safety zones
De-skilling of the workforce	If a robot does the skilled work, fewer humans learn the trade; the skills may be lost over generations

Robotics, combined with artificial intelligence (topic 17), raises a set of harder questions that go beyond simple pros and cons:

Accountability: if a robot makes a decision that injures someone, who is responsible: the manufacturer, the programmer, the operator, or the owner?
Safety: how do we test a robot's behaviour exhaustively to prove it is safe before deploying it?
Algorithmic bias: if a smart robot was trained on data that contained bias, it can repeat or amplify that bias in its decisions.
Legal liability: existing laws were written for human actors; rules for autonomous machines are still being developed.
Employment: as more jobs are automated, society has to decide how to support workers whose roles disappear.

These are open questions; they appear in exam answers about the impact of robotics, not as questions with one right answer.