MOSCOW, August 20. /TASS/. Overall, Russians have no qualms over the fact that robots may replace humans in various fields of work in the future, according to a survey carried out by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center on Tuesday.

"Most working Russians (78%) are not afraid that robots may replace people at the workplace, especially working men (81%), employees from Moscow and St. Petersburg (83%) and cities having over one million inhabitants (83%), as well as cities with a population of 500,000 to 950,000 people (82%). That said, 21% of the working population still have concerns about it," the report says.

Russians believe that it is necessary to cultivate robotics primarily in space exploration (49%), hazardous industrial manufacturing (44%), disaster recovery (39%) and medical diagnostics (34%). In addition, the absolute number of respondents (80%) agreed with the opinion that the development of domestic robotics will contribute to the consolidation of Russia’s positions in space exploration.

Opinions on whether robots will be able to replace people in many spheres of activity remain divided. A little more than half of those surveyed (51%) disagreed with the given statement, mostly women (57%), whereas 47%, mostly men (55%), concurred with the possibility of robots replacing human employees.

A survey dubbed "Sputnik" carried out by the state-run pollster is dedicated to the launch of the Soyuz MS-14 spacecraft on August 22, which will carry the humanoid Fedor onboard. About 1,600 Russians aged over 18 took part in the telephone survey on August 18.