The news about these developments often has an air of panic about it, as economists worry about how humans will make a living if the machines are doing all the work. The numbers are certainly concerning: Evidence suggests that industrial robots like the ones made in the Yaskawa factory have cost thousands of American jobs. The number of industrial robots, which are automatically controlled, multipurpose, reprogrammable machines, increased fourfold between 1993 and 2007, according to a recent study by MIT economists Daron Acemoglu and Pascual Restrepo. The authors found that one such industrial robot in a metropolitan area reduced employment by about six workers, costing the U.S. economy 670,000 jobs between 1990 and 2007.

But there are positives too. The MIT economist David Autor has emphasized that automation also complements labor, making workers more productive. There are certain tasks that robots can’t do, he writes, and humans will always be needed for those. Working along with robots, humans can also create new, better jobs. Indeed, another study, out of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, shows that between 2010 and 2015, six technology-related jobs were created for every 10 jobs lost. And despite the deployment of thousands of robots across the country, the unemployment rate is at a 10-year-low, and worries of widespread joblessness have yet to materialize.

My visit to the Yaskawa factory illustrated these positives. I talked to a 25-year-old process engineer named Greg Smith, who has a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and is finishing up his master’s in electrical engineering. He showed me an automated vehicle that communicated with a humanoid robot to move parts around a factory floor, as the robots checked the parts to make sure they were made correctly, and retooled those that were not. We walked by a Yaskawa robot that could stack objects on top of one another, and one that took items off an assembly line and packed them in a box. Another robot—one of Yaskawa’s most popular products—welds metal parts together faster and more accurately than humans can.

All of those robots are going to replace humans who do the same work, but on the other hand, Smith has a job because of the success of companies like Yaskawa. Increasingly, he told me, he is designing robots that work with humans collaboratively. Smith’s grandmother doesn’t like that he works with robots—she thinks he’s putting people out of work—but his career, at least, is secure. “My job will never go away,” he told me.

Smith said his approach to automation is a simple one: If American companies don’t automate, they won’t be able to compete with foreign companies that do. Besides, he said, robots conduct work that humans probably don’t want to do, work that is dirty, dangerous, and dull.