Robots can perform surgery, shampoo someone’s hair, read a mammogram and, of course, drive a car. A chatbot could probably write my column, if I let it. Now that machines can do nearly everything humans do, the question is what effect they have on human motivation. Do they make our lives easier and more efficient, or do they turn us into slackers?

A study published in October in the journal Frontiers in Robotics and AI has an answer: A person who works alongside a robot is less likely to focus on details than when he or she works alone. Anyone who has worked in a team knows that one or two people usually carry the load while the others sit back and watch; researchers call this “social loafing.” It turns out that people treat robots the same way.