Robots and automation are transforming the nature of human work. Although human–robot collaborations can create new jobs and increase productivity, the media often warns about the threat of automation: wide-scale replacement of humans with robots and machines, leading to mass unemployment. Although many social commentators see robots as a threat, relatively little research has directly assessed how laypeople react to robots in the workplace. Drawing from cultivation theory, we suggest that employees would generally view the rise of machines negatively. Four studies—including an archival data across 185 metropolitan US areas, two pre-registered experiments conducted in the United States and Singapore, and an experience-sampling study among engineers conducted in India—find that the increasing presence of robots and automation leads to greater job insecurity. Data from the India study also reveals that this robot-related job insecurity, in turn, is positively associated with burnout and workplace incivility. Our findings hold across different cultures and employees, and even in industries not threatened by robots and automation.