This report contains a summary of the results of an exploratory workshop to discuss the future of industrial robotics and its likely impact on public policy. Background information is presented, and workshop goals are delineated. Under the general area of robot technology, these topics are covered: the roots of robotics technology, a definition of robots, the technological content of robots, and the robot market. Some issues concerning the robot industry that were identified are listed. Five sets of social issues that were identified are then briefly discussed. They are productivity and capital formation, labor, education and training, international impacts, and other applications (military, space, oceans). Appendixes, amounting to approximately four-fifths of the report, include four background papers prepared for the workshop. The papers (1) offer an updated look at the Japanese industrial robotics industry, (2) discuss industrial robotic technology and productivity improvement, (3) present some foundations for policy analysis of the effects of increasing applications of robotics on their cost effectiveness and international competitiveness and consider the problems and policy implications, and (4) provide a framework for analyzing the robotics industry and its interrelationship with United States manufacturing techniques. (YLB)