One robot can only deal with a relatively little amount of cows in a day. I remember something around a hundred. And industrial scale human-involved systems are at a much bigger scale. If anything, these large-scale systems would require more antibiotics.

Over time the antibiotic management should even improve through the availability of per-quarter, per-cow data on the performance of the cow. Some antibiosis is often necessary, and probably can't be avoided if you don't want cows suffering unduly, or getting culled because without treatment the cow won't be profitable anymore. But that is a whole different kind of animal... err.... discussion

That takes care (formally) of a substantial part of Europe. Regulations such as these also tend to spread because they limit the ability to export produce that does not follow them (that's how lead-free soldering conquered the world based on a EU directive, and how Californian pollution limits for cars spread over the USA, etc)

If you think those rules get broken so often that this is more of a problem in Europe than in, say, the USA, Canada, Australia, or Asia, can you give a link?

It was inaccurate because the robotic milkers do not necessitate antibiotics in any way. There's no increased need for antibiotics because a cow is milked by a robot instead of a human.

> Antibiotic in livestock is a real problem already

In the dairy industry, if a cow is on antibiotics her milk is dumped at the order of the company that buys the milk for bottling and distribution to consumers. At least that's how it works on my neighbor's farm, who sells milk to a regional dairy distributor.