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Human workers prefer to take orders from robots than their colleagues, researchers have found.

They say that letting robots have control over human tasks in manufacturing is not just more efficient - it is actually preferred by workers. 

 Researchers were stunned to find that in a series of management experiments, human workers were actually more content when a robot was in charge.

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Who's the boss? Researchers say letting robots have control over human tasks in manufacturing is not just more efficient — it's actually preferred by workers.

The new research from MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) suggests that in the future, robots should be given more control.

'In our research we were seeking to find that sweet spot for ensuring that the human workforce is both satisfied and productive,' says project lead Matthew Gombolay, a PhD student at CSAIL. 

'We discovered that the answer is to actually give machines more autonomy, if it helps people to work together more fluently with robot teammates.'

Specifically, in the study, groups of two humans and one robot worked together in one of three conditions: manual (all tasks allocated by a human); fully autonomous (all tasks allocated by the robot); and semi-autonomous (one human allocates tasks to self, and a robot allocates tasks to other human).

The fully-autonomous condition proved to be not only the most effective for the task, but also the method preferred by human workers.  

Would you take orders from a robot boss?

The workers were more likely to say that the robots 'better understood them' and 'improved the efficiency of the team,' the researchers found.

Gombolay emphasizes that giving robots control doesn't mean a team of cyborgs will be running the show. 

It means the tasks are delegated, scheduled, and coordinated via a human-generated algorithm.

'Instead of coming up with a plan by hand, it's about developing tools to help create plans automatically,' he said. 

Humanoid robot Kirobo 'speaking' in the International Space Station (ISS). The pint-sized android has been sent into space to work with astronauts.

The algorithm can also conduct on-the-fly replanning, instantly developing an alternate 'schedule' for a task if, say, a new part arrives or a machine malfunctions — a clear advantage over its human counterparts, who generally require time to call an audible.

Gombolay says that, in the future, similar algorithms could be applied to human-human collaboration (like scheduling hospital resources), search-and-rescue drones, and even one-on-one, human-robot collaboration in which the robot could help someone with discrete building and construction tasks.