In order to get rid of the so-called “labor shortage,” companies are finally trying to replace workers with machines – and robotics companies couldn’t be happier. David Zapico, the CEO of robotics company Ametek Inc., told Bloomberg News that his firm is going all in, as he says, “people want to remove labor.”

He isn’t alone. Executives at Hormel Foods Corp and Domino’s Pizza also told Bloomberg that they’re putting their bets on automation in an effort to reduce labor costs and respond to a “tight labor supply,” as one Hormel vice president calls it.

Is it a threat to humans?

But this trend also gives birth to an important question: what about human labor? If the trend continues to grow, “labor demand will grow slowly, inequality will increase, and the prospects for many low-education workers will not be very good,” MIT economist Daron Acemoglu told Bloomberg.

Greg Nichols wrote at ZDNet that “the robot revolution isn’t coming” — it’s “already here.” The founder of affirm known as Brain Corp to Nichols that its “fleet” of robots is “equivalent to 6.8 million hours of human work.”

“We are thrilled to celebrate reaching 100 billion square feet of coverage with our fleet which represents the square footage of the entire commercial space in the United States,” the CEO, Eugene Izhikevich, told ZDNet.

Robots to have social skills

Besides, MIT’s CSAIL computer science researchers are trying to give robots some social skills, enabling them to interact with other robots to achieve their goals. This will make the robots more accessible and easy to replace humans.

The research could lead to improved human-robot interactions in assisted living facilities. It can also help psychologists to measure social interactions between humans in a much better way. To study these interactions, the researchers created a simulated 2D environment that enabled virtual robots to perform physical as well as social goals.