A Step Too Far? Public Perceptions on Navigating the Introduction of Robot Technologies into the Human-Animal Relationship in Agriculture.

Robots are being developed to perform the day-to-day operational tasks of animal agriculture, affecting the way in which humans and farm animals interact. There is the prospect of automation increasing to the point where humans would hardly set foot on farms, which, aside from the consumption of animal-based products, could entirely disconnect humans and farmed animals from each other. Yet the literature on public attitudes towards the introduction of agricultural robots into the human-animal relationship is sparse. Here, we consider the public acceptability of introducing robots into the human-animal relationship in agriculture. Between 2023 and 2025, we conducted 12 dialogue groups and two community juries with members of the Australian public on the social and ethical impacts of automation in agriculture. We draw on insights from these empirical studies to highlight the underlying values that inform different attitudes towards robots taking on tasks previously performed by humans in animal farming. Across our empirical work, we consistently found three key factors influencing the willingness of members of the public to accept agricultural robots into the human-animal relationship: moral responsibility for farm animals; human intuition and empathy; and a natural life as a condition of animal welfare. Our data suggested that the removal of humans from all contact with farmed animals by adopting highly roboticized farming will likely be rejected by the Australian public as "a step too far", largely due to its moral and social implications. We identify a set of conditions that are likely to be important to public acceptability of the use of robots in animal agriculture.